


Help Me Rebuild

by Hypocorismm



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - No Hale Fire, Angst, Bottom Derek Hale, College Student Derek, De-Aged Derek Hale, Derek Hale & Stiles Stilinski Friendship, First Time, M/M, Missing Persons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-13
Updated: 2015-03-11
Packaged: 2018-02-08 22:04:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 28,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1957761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hypocorismm/pseuds/Hypocorismm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your best friend from high school who suddenly went missing at graduation shows up years and years later... except he is still 17 years old and more confused than you are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The last thing Stiles said to Derek was something along the lines of “you’re a dumbass, Derek, really. I’ll see you tomorrow; try not to get your dumb ass lost on your way to the school.”

That was 9 years ago, and Stiles hasn’t seen his best friend since.

“Stiles, are you okay?” Erica asked, her hair pulled back in a clip and her face bare of any make up. Stiles smiled back at her, watching as she leaned out of the doorframe to her room. Stiles had met Erica the first week of college, and she had buried herself deep into him, into his life. Besides his father, Erica was the only one who knew about Derek, the only one Stiles had plucked up the courage to tell. Of course, this courage came in the form of approximately 10 shots of tequila, and Stiles blubbering drunkenly about Derek Hale. Erica and Stiles had moved in together once their college’s housing requirement was satisfied, getting an apartment together with Allison and Scott, two disgustingly in love classmates they’d met in their freshmen year. Now, 26 years old, Allison and Scott were married with a kid, Erica was a successful fashion designer with a steady boyfriend, and Stiles was still mourning a boy he hadn’t seen since he was 17.

“I just miss him, is all,” Stiles said, tucking his chin into his knees, pressing himself further into the couch. “It’s officially 9 years today. I graduated 9 years ago, and Derek went missing. And I have no idea what to do.”

“It’ll be okay,” she said gently.

“I know. It’s almost 20 years without my mom. I just never thought I’d be counting years without him. It was always supposed to me and him, Derek and Stiles against the world. But then, he was gone. There was no trace of him having left. All of his stuff was there, his book left on the bed, his laptop still open where he was looking up information on the college he was going to, and there was no sign of forced entry. He left, Erica. My best friend ditched me.”

“Stiles,” she sighed, padding out to the couch. She sank into the cushions beside him. “Maybe there was something more in his life, something he wasn’t telling you.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Stiles snapped. Erica frowned. “Oh, you know that kid you spent the entirety of your childhood with? He was lying to you. He lied to you about something so major that it sent him running away the night before your graduation. Yeah, that helps.”

She pressed a kiss into his forehead.

“Try to get some sleep tonight, Stiles. You have an early shift tomorrow.”

Stiles grumbled and crossed his arms over his chest. Stiles had never really figured out what he wanted to do with his life, so since graduating with a BA in both Education and History, both of which he really had no desire to follow through on, he had moved from one crappy, minimum wage, physically demanding, and demeaning customer service job to another just to keep the roof over their heads, their water running, and their bellies filled.

Erica drifted back into her room and shut the door, leaving Stiles alone to wallow in his grief. He’d met Derek in pre-school, when Jackson had kicked down his tower of blocks for the third day in a row. Stiles didn’t cry, he just plotted his revenge. Derek came and sat down on day three, and offered to help him rebuild. On Day Four, their friendship was cemented when Derek got up during play time, casually strolled over to Jackson building his tower of blocks, and innocently kicked the blocks down. They’d been friends ever since. Derek was there through all of Stiles’ tough times, through Claudia’s growing sickness until she no longer recognized Stiles on her better days, and reacted almost violently to his presence on her worst days, through watching Claudia deteriorate until she was nothing of her former self, through his father’s grief, and Stiles’ panic attacks, through his old medication failing to work, and finding a new medication through that long period of trial and error. But when Stiles needed Derek the most, Derek was nowhere to be found. He vanished the night before their graduation, and left Stiles to put his life back together. It was hard when half of Stiles’ foundation was just gone.

He’s still not entirely sure he had done so successfully.

The clock on their cable box showed it was after 1 in the morning, and Stiles should get to bed because Erica was right, he did have a super early shift, but he didn’t have it in him to move. He thought that maybe if he sat there long enough, life wouldn’t be quite so awful.

He knew, logically, he was just making life even worse for himself. He would get very little sleep, and then spend his entire 7 hour shift grumpy, then go to his second job where he would be even grumpier, and his life would not get any better.

He still couldn’t find the energy, or motivation, to get up off the couch.

He does when at 1:37 the doorbell rings. He cannot fathom who it might be, considering Scott and Allison have a spare key, as well as Erica’s boyfriend Boyd. Isaac generally knocks since he’s not even aware of the doorbell, as do Cora and Laura, Derek’s sisters, and well, anyone else he knows doesn’t come to his house, and especially not at 1:37 in the morning. He pushed himself off the couch and wandered cautiously to the door, picking up the aluminum bat he kept there, just in case. He slid open the deadbolt, then turned the lock, and finally yanked open the heavy wooden door.

And time stopped.

Standing on his porch, wearing the same clothes he’d seen him in 9 years ago, hands tucked into his pockets, was Derek Hale.

17 year old, baby faced Derek Hale.

Derek Hale who didn’t look like he had aged a second in the 9 years they had been apart.

Derek Hale whose green eyes were staring at Stiles like he didn’t even recognize him, which was fair given that Stiles had aged 9 years in the 9 years they’d been apart.

“Holy shit,” Stiles whispered.

“Stiles?” Derek asked, glancing around and his eyebrows furrowing. Stiles had seen that look a thousand times during math class, Derek struggling to keep up with everyone else, until Stiles sat him down and taught Derek himself each formula and each equation. This was the look of complete and utter confusion.

“Derek,” he replied. He pushed the door completely open and stepped outside, closer to him. To Derek. He held up his hand, reaching out to touch him. He had to make sure this was real, that he wasn’t hallucinating. “This can’t be happening.”

“Stiles, what’s, what’s going on?” Derek asked, voice cracking. “Why do you look so old?”

Stiles made an affronted noise, scrunching up his face. He didn’t look _that_ old. He was 26, not the crypt keeper.

“When did your shoulders get that broad?” Derek continued. “Who’s house is this?”

Stiles pressed his hand into Derek’s cheek, and Derek’s jaw snapped shut.

“You can’t be real. I must be dreaming.”

“I don’t understand,” Derek replied. “What happened?”

“I could ask you the same thing, Derek. Jesus,” Stiles whimpered. “You’re so young. You didn’t look this young back then, did you?”

“Back then? What are you talking about? We saw each other like three hours ago, Stiles.”

“Derek, you’ve been gone for nine years, not a couple of hours.”

Derek and Stiles just stared at each other, Stiles’ hand falling away from Derek’s cheek despite how scared he was that if he stopped touching Derek, he might disappear again. He looked Derek over, noticing how everything about this boy was exactly the same as it had been nine years ago. There was still a small ketchup stain on his shorts from dinner where Derek had lifted his burger to his mouth and some of the ketchup plopped out. There was still a deep scratch on his arm from where Cora’s cat had clawed him during her bath. There was still a hint of eyeliner and eye-shadow ringing Derek’s eyes from where Laura had forced Derek into playing doll for her.

There wasn’t a single thing that had changed about Derek.

He couldn’t say the same about himself.

He was nine years older and it had begun to show with crow’s feet and laugh lines, his hair grown out from his high school buzz cut, his shoulders wider, with old cuts healed to scars and older scars fading to nothing. He had dark circles caused by late night closings and early morning openings, his hands stilled from their youthful jitteriness as the ADHD had faded to background noise. He was an adult, and he wondered self-consciously what Derek thought of him now.

“What year is it?” Derek asked.

“What year do you think it is?”

“I think it’s fucking 2013, because that’s the year it is, Stiles,” Derek stresses.

Stiles slid his hand into Derek’s and tugged him inside, shutting the door behind them.

“It’s 2022, Derek. What do you remember?”

“Remember? I literally just saw you. You were shorter. We were the same height.”

Stiles was a few inches taller than Derek now, could peer over the top of his head without trying. They had, more or less, been the same height most of their lives, except for that year of middle school where Stiles had gone through an unexpected growth spurt, but Derek caught up freshman year of high school. Stiles figured that Derek and he would still be the same height if they were the same age still.

Stiles turned and returned to the couch, letting Derek follow behind as he fell into the cushions. He didn’t know what to say to Derek. He didn’t know what to say at all.

Derek sank onto the couch beside him, and they sat in confused, stunted silence.

“Tell me what happened,” Derek finally said as the clock on the cable box ticked past two in the morning.

“You disappeared,” Stiles said with a shrug. It didn’t feel like a shrugging situation, and it never had been, but Stiles was trying to maintain some sort of composure. “It was the night before our graduation, and you were gone. There was no trace of you. You left while you were researching the best places to eat around campus and in the middle of a bottle of Mountain Dew, which surprised me the most, actually.”

Derek was known to always finish his soda, and if he didn’t finish it, it went with him. Everywhere. Derek used to take his milk cartons from lunch into classes, where they weren’t allowed, if he hadn’t finished them. He was a Hale, though, as in Principal Andrew Hale, and even better Superintendent Talia Hale, so teachers let his drink habit (obsession, Stiles still insisted) slide.

“After that, my dad spent the entire summer looking into leads to find you, long after the rest of the department had stopped looking, and your mom bribed everyone into voting him Sheriff for his efforts. I went to college, met Erica, moved in with Erica, graduated, and here I am. Laura is married now to her boyfriend from college, with two beautiful kids, a five year old named Silas, and a three year old terror named Marissa. Cora graduated with a dual degree in business and culinary, she owns her own bakery in Beacon Hills, and lives above the shop with Isaac Lahey, the shy kid from our graduating class, who I totally match-made. Patrick graduates in a couple days, valedictorian, if you’ll believe it. Peter’s daughter Malia got kicked out of school for fighting every single person who looked at her wrong, so now she’s at a boarding school in the mountains, and Talia gave Peter the best _be a better parent_ speech in the world. I can’t really think of anything else. Except, I missed the fucking hell out of you, man.”

Derek processed like an old dial-up modem, except without the god awful screeching noises they used to make.

“I don’t understand,” Derek said slowly, choosing his words carefully. “How did this happen?”

“You got me, man,” Stiles said, scrubbing a hand through his hair wearily. “It’s been happening all over for the past couple of years. Some Australian lady disappeared from her home and turned up in a Texas hotel 12 hours later with no recollection of having left her home. A man from China appeared in the vault of a bank in England three days after he’d gone missing, also no memory. Even the Prince of Wales went missing for a week, woke up in a barn surrounded by pigs in Montana, no memory.”

Derek nodded as if this was a perfect explanation.

“Clearly the universe is having a bit of fun,” Stiles said, glancing at the clock. “Nine years though, to the day.”

He let out a bark of laughter, unable to stop himself. Of all the boys in the world to steal for nine years, the universe picked his.

“Glad you think this is amusing,” Derek grumbled.

“I don’t,” Stiles replied quickly. “This is just the most ridiculous situation I’ve ever been in. And I was in some _ridiculous_ situations in college, let me tell you.”

Derek frowned, his young face scrunching up in what Stiles knew was his upset face. Something Stiles had said had hit Derek in a less than nice way, and it was time to backtrack. That was what Stiles had learned from years and years of friendship with Derek Hale, something even nine years of no Derek Hale could not erase.

“Hey, what’s up?” he asked, shuffling close to Derek and nudging him. Hales are tactile. Hales don’t have any idea what Personal Space is. Hales like to be brushed up against and hugged in a way that compliments Stilinskis perfectly.

“You’re, you’re an adult, Stiles,” Derek said. “You grew up without me. You have friends that I don’t know. You can tell stories that I’ve never heard. You are not the same guy that left my house a couple of hours ago.”

Stiles looked down at his lap, watching their legs pressed into each other’s. They’d sat like this a million times in their lives, pushed together on Hale Family Nights, sitting at the lunch table’s too tightly packed benches, lying on one or the other’s bed late at night. It felt so easy to have Derek pressed up against him like this, like breathing. It had always been easy having Derek around, made him more at ease, settled down his nerves.

“I’m still Stiles,” he finally said. “I’m just older.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” Derek said, going for light-hearted, Stiles thought, but cracking somewhere in the middle. He reached out with shaking fingers and touched the lines in the corner of Stiles’ eyes. He opened his mouth to speak but his words turned into long vowels as he yawned.

“Yeah, me too, buddy,” Stiles said. “Let’s go to bed. We’ll figure this out tomorrow.”

Stiles took Derek’s wrist and tugged him towards his room, a small box of a room with barely enough space for a bed and a dresser. Stiles made it work, somehow, with his stuff piled on other stuff. He still had the habit of pinning articles and scraps of paper relevant to his life to a corkboard over the dresser, red strings connecting them in ways that only made sense to him, apparently. His roommates, a party boy named Seth his first year and then Scott for the rest of his housing requirements, stared in wonder and confusion at his system, sometimes asking but most of the time keeping their curiosity to themselves.

Stiles tugged his shirt and sweatpants off, moving to switch on an old box fan that barely worked anymore while Derek stripped down to just his boxer briefs automatically. They piled into Stiles’ tiny, one-person bed, too cheap to shell out for anything bigger than a twin when he and Erica moved in together, Stiles’ larger body taking up most of the room they used to share equally. They have to curl into one another to fit comfortably, their skin sweaty and tacky in the California summer air.

He chuckled.

“What?” Derek asked.

“I was just thinking of the last time we slept like this,” Stiles commented. “The night before I tried out for the lacrosse team.”

“The night I kissed you,” Derek stated.

Derek was Stiles’ first kiss, which had done nothing to assuage the affection that burned in Stiles’ gut like indigestion.

“Stiles, are you asleep?” Derek had whispered on a night just like this one, hot and sticky, their bodies hot where their skin touched. They were going into their freshman year, and Stiles was nervous to try out for lacrosse without Derek. Derek, as was a standing tradition amongst the Hales, was going out for basketball in the winter.

“No, too nervous,” Stiles had replied, staring up at the ceiling above them while his fingers tapped out uneven rhythms on Derek’s arm.

“What are you nervous about?”

Derek had turned onto his side to face Stiles, and Stiles had followed suit.

“What if I make a fool of myself?”

“Stiles, you make a fool of yourself every single day. Lacrosse will be no different.”

“Gee, thanks. I feel so much better.”

Derek had laughed at that and shuffled even closer, his hot breath ghosting on Stiles’ already hot skin, their foreheads pressing together.

“What else are you nervous about?”

“What if I’m weird?”

“Stiles.”

“No, hear me out. I’ve always been weird. I have ADHD, my mom is dead, my dad is a cop, and I have one friend. I understand that I’m not normal. But what if I’m more not normal than I’ve ever imagined?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you know how many times I’ve had to listen to the guys talk about who got to which base with whom?”

“This is about girls?” Derek had asked, eyebrows shooting up towards his hairline in surprise.

“Not even girls, dude. I like girls, but I don’t like just girls,” Stiles had sighed. “I just like people. I don’t care what they’ve got hiding in their shorts.”

Derek had let out a soft chuckle.

“I just don’t want to be the only guy on the lacrosse team who can’t get a girlfriend, or a boyfriend, or something. I want to go out on dates and spend time with someone with the hopes of getting to kiss them whenever I want, and I want that someone to have the hopes of getting to kiss me whenever they want, and I don’t want to be the awkward, lonely kid who has never even been kissed before.”

The expression on Derek’s face had softened, and a fond smile had graced his lips.

“What if I kissed you?” Derek had asked.

“What?”

“What if I kissed you? Would you feel better about high school?”

Stiles couldn’t reply. He couldn’t think. He wanted this so desperately, had since they were kids. He couldn’t do anything but nod. Derek took Stiles’ hand in one of his and with the other tilted his chin up.

“You sure about this?”

Stiles nodded.

Derek moved in, and then his lips were on Stiles’. It was a soft gentle kiss at first, mouths closed. Stiles pulled away first, resting his forehead on Derek’s.

“That was,” Stiles trailed off as Derek leaned in again for another. Stiles let him, pressing back in return. It started out the same, and then changed as Derek opened his mouth strangely expertly. Stiles did the same, taking a stuttering breath in through his mouth. The kiss turned hot, Derek licking at Stiles’ lips before sliding his tongue past them. Stiles slid a hand into Derek’s hair, holding the boy still so he wouldn’t try and stop. It was sloppy and imprecise, but Derek and Stiles were sloppy and imprecise people, and this was perfect in all of its imperfection as cliché as he knew that was.

They made out for quite a while, just kissing, nothing else, and eventually fell asleep sometime in the small hours of the morning. Stiles hadn’t been nervous to face high school because he had Derek there. He couldn’t say the same about college, or life afterwards.

They lay in the same position years later, Derek only aged a few years while Stiles had aged closer to fifteen.

“I’ve wanted to kiss you again since that night, but I wasn’t sure if you wanted to, and then Paige happened and,” Derek said. Stiles silenced him with another kiss, Derek’s words dying with a startled gasp.

“We can talk about this tomorrow, okay? Just don’t, don’t disappear on me again,” Stiles said, running a hand through Derek’s hair.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Derek assured him.

 

-&-

 

Derek was there in the morning when Stiles woke up, plastered to his chest and his breath almost overwhelming in the crook of Stiles’ neck. Stiles peeled Derek off of him just enough to slide out from underneath and head to the bathroom, dialing his second job’s phone number.

“Brandt’s Bakery,” Lulu, the store’s manager answered sleepily. He checked the time on the slow ticking clock Erica had hung up over the toilet. It was just before opening, so she wasn’t entirely conscious yet. Lulu was barely older than Stiles, maybe early thirties, and the daughter of Bailey Brandt, the owner and founder of Brandt’s Bakery.

“Lulu, it’s Stiles,” he said wearily.

“What’s up, sweetheart?” she asked.

“I can’t make it in for my shift tonight,” he replied. She sighed. “There’s just something going on at home right now, and I can’t make it in. I’m so, so sorry.”

“Oh, sweetheart, don’t you even worry. You take the week to sort everything out and we’ll get you back on the schedule as soon as you’re okay.”

“Thank you, Lulu. Really. Thank you.”

“I’ve got to go, Stiles, but you take care of yourself.”

They hung up and Stiles smiled to himself. He hated that he was a college graduate with two dead-end jobs but he loved Brandt’s Bakery so much. He liked the bakery, and once Cora had offered him a position at her own bakery in Beacon Hills when she found out how much he liked it, but he’d turned it down because Erica liked in where they were and he couldn’t survive Beacon Hills without Derek.

His first job, however, was not so nice. He worked as a cashier at a corporate department store where employees were just numbers and their lives did not matter. He dialed the number for the store and waited while it rang a bunch of times.

“McLaughlin’s Clothing Store,” Mason answered with a growl.

“Mason, it’s Stiles Stilinski, I’m supposed to work today but,” he started.

“Why can’t you work? Are you lazy?” Mason snapped.

“No, there’s a family emergency back home, and I have to go take care of it,” Stiles said.

“Did someone die?”

“Well, no.”

“Is someone dying?”

“No,” Stiles said.

“Then what is this emergency that cannot wait until the end of your shift?”

“My best friend came back from the dead,” Stiles snarled. “Is that good enough for you?”

He was met by only silence.

“You have one of those reappearance cases?” Mason asked quietly.

“Yes, I have a reappearance case, and I would like some time off to figure out what the fuck I’m supposed to do with a 17 year old kid, is that okay?”

“I, uhh, I-”

“I’ll take that as a yes. I’ll see you next week, Mason,” Stiles snapped, hanging up the phone. He shook his head and rubbed his hand over his face. He should crawl back into bed and sleep alongside Derek until the sun actually rose, but he knew he wouldn’t actually sleep.

Maybe he could make some headway in that book his favorite professor had given him years back. He had promised he would read it and get back to her on it before he found a teaching position, but then he hadn’t gone into teaching and instead found himself paying off his student loans on minimum wage customer service jobs where he was paid to smile and please.

His life was glamorous.

He left the bathroom and headed towards the kitchen, checking the time again. Erica had to be up in less than half an hour, because although she was a successful fashion designer and mostly lived on her own managed time, she had grown up things to do, like go to meetings after driving for a couple of hours.

“What are you doing?” Derek’s soft voice came from the doorway. Stiles jumped, his phone flying towards the ceiling and then came crashing back down. He groaned.

“Please, don’t be broken.”

He had his phone protected inside a shock-absorbing case, but he had managed to break more cell phones in his time than he was able to count. He scooped the phone off the ground and turned the screen on, checking for any damage and letting out a sigh when he found none.

“I need to talk to you about that sneaking up shit, Hale, because I am not as young as I once was. I could have a heart attack and drop dead the next time you do that.”

Derek frowned.

“I was calling out of work,” Stiles finally answered. “And now I’m awake, so I was gonna make Erica some coffee and pancakes before she heads out. You wanna help?”

“What are you doing awake so early?”

“My first shift was supposed to start at 7:30, so I could help Mason open the store and everything, but I called out on account of you, and I wanted to give Lulu plenty of notice to bribe someone else in for my shift at the bakery,” Stiles replied, shifting the various containers of coffee around in the cupboard before finding Erica’s favorite at the back. He portioned out enough grounds into a clean filter for two cups, one for when she wakes up and another for the drive.

“You called out of work for me?”

“I’m not gonna leave you here alone for almost twelve hours, dude. No way. Especially given that Erica would pitch the biggest fit in the world if you broke anything.”

“I wouldn’t break anything.”

“Yeah, sure,” Stiles replied. He hefted the giant, and he did mean _giant_ box of Bisquick out of the pantry. He started scooping leaping cups of the mix from the box to a bowl.“Not the point, though. What kind of friend would I be if I just left you alone to entertain yourself? I would not live up to my Hufflepuff name.”

“You’re a Slytherin, asshole,” Derek reminded him.

“True. Scotty’s the Hufflepuff, that’s why we get along so well. He’s fiercely loyal, and I would do just about anything for him. Bros to the end, and all that,” Stiles said waving a hand around. Bisquick mix flew in a flurry around, and he groaned. “Today already sucks.”

“I’ll clean that up,” Derek offered. “Where’s your broom?”

“Uhm. Gimme a second.”

Stiles looked around his kitchen helplessly.

“I don’t even think we have one. How is that possible?”

“I smell coffee,” Erica grumbled, stumbling out to them. Her blonde hair was pulled up in a half-bun, most of it tumbling down her neck, and she was wrapped up in Stiles’ old Beacon Hills Lacrosse jacket, his proud number 24 in fading white print on the back.

“Do we have a broom?”

“What’d you do to my house?” she answered, squinting at him as her eyes adjusted to the light.

“We made a mess, a little one. I’m gonna clean it up, don’t worry about the precious house. I just need to know if we own a broom.”

“You’re an idiot, Stilinski.”

“Because I don’t know if we have a broom? I just want to sweep things. I need a broom to do so with!”

“Say broom one more time,” she growled, glaring at him before she slumped against the counter by the coffee pot. She laid her head against the top of it and stroked it lovingly, cooing her adoration to it through sleepy slurs.

“Wha-” Derek started to ask when he caught Erica’s attention finally. She stood up straight and turned, staring at him leaning against the counter by the back door, hair barely mussed from sleep, still wearing just his boxer briefs. He looked exactly like Stiles had remembered him, right down to every scratch and freckle. It was bizarre, Stiles thought, that someone gone for so long could still stick like that in your mind.

He remembered how his mother began to fade from his memory only months after her death, and how he cried because he couldn’t remember the sound of her laugh anymore.

Derek had sat by him while he sobbed.

“Who are you?”

“Erica, this is Derek Hale. Derek, this is Erica Reyes, my roommate and resident adult keeper,” Stiles introduced awkwardly.

“Derek Hale, as in _the_ Derek Hale?” Erica gasped, eyes widening as she stared at Derek, taking in every detail there was to see. “Best friend, lost at 17, caused you to fall into a deep, deep social depression.”

“What?” Derek asked, looking towards Stiles with the most heartbreakingly lost look that Stiles had seen. He wondered if that was how he looked in the months after Derek’s disappearance, searching for the other half of him that couldn’t be found. Until he found Scott. It wasn’t a perfect fit, but Scott knew Stiles could be an unapologetic prick when he wanted to be and Stiles knew that Scott could be naïve and foolish when starry-eyed in love. They worked.

“I didn’t handle you being gone graciously,” Stiles said. Erica let out a snort bordering on derision. He shot her a look. “Deep, deep social depression isn’t far off.”

“I’m so so-”

“Can you have your heartfelt confession later? I need to know why Hale is still a fresh-faced senior while you’re old as balls, Stilinski. Where you been, kid?”

“Erica,” Stiles warned. “Not now.”

“How long you been here?”

“Since about 2 o’clock,” Derek answered.

“This morning?”

Derek nodded, looking towards Stiles with a rare form of Hale fright. Hales were never scared, but when they were, they went all the way.

“And you haven’t called his parents yet?” she demanded, her voice growing louder. “This missing 17 year old boy shows up on the steps of our home, Stiles Stilinski, and you don’t call his parents to come get him, or your father, or the cops, or something? You have a sleepover instead?”

Stiles wasn’t afraid of Erica.

Except, he totally was.

He was terrified of Erica.

“It’s not that simple, Erica.”

“Fuck you! Yes, it is! You pull out that shitty phone of yours, dial up Beacon Hills, and say to Derek’s mother, _I found your fucking son, would you like to see him_?”

Stiles frowned at her.

“I don’t want to go home yet,” Derek piped up, staring at Stiles while he spoke. “In case anyone was asking what I wanted, which you haven’t yet, by the way. I know my parents probably miss me, but I just saw them. I will go see them, but I need to talk to Stiles before I go.”

Stiles couldn’t look away, Derek’s green eyes wide and pleading.

“Oh, hell,” Erica cursed, looking back and forth between the pair. “You two make me sick. I’m going to shower. Don’t be in my house when I’m done.”

“Erica, this is my house too! I pay half the bills!”

“My point still stands, Twinkle Toes. Out of my house with your drama,” she said, pouring herself a cup of coffee and heading into the bathroom without a second glance. Stiles sighed, pouring the rest of the pot into a travel mug for her, popping the lid on it.

“Alright, we should get dressed and get out of here. I don’t know where we’ll go, but I’m kind of terrified of what Erica will do to us if we’re not out of the house when she’s done showering.”

“Why are you so afraid of her?”

Stiles stopped and turned, considering. He leaned against a counter before he spoke.

“Do you remember Laura when she and her basketball coach were butting heads over some new players, so she took her frustration out on the rest of us?”

“Yes, but I’m not sure what that has to do with Erica,” Derek answered.

“That’s Erica twenty-four/seven,” Stiles explained, continuing on his way back to his room, gesturing for Derek to follow. “Imagine you took Cora and Laura’s temperaments, and rolled them together.”

“What parts?”

“Laura’s temper, and Cora’s ego,” Stiles replied. Derek shuddered.

“Oh, god.”

“Exactly.”

Stiles pushed open the door to his room and waited by the door while Derek walked in. He pushed the door shut and heaved out a sigh.

“Okay, do you want to borrow some clothes or put the ones you had on before back on?”

“I’ll, uhm, borrow some, I guess. We’re not the same size anymore.”

“Dude, you had massive shoulders way before I did,” Stiles retorted with a snort. “We’ll find something. I didn’t turn into Isaac, so we’re good.”

“Isaac?”

“He’s really tall,” Stiles said. “You and me were tall in high school, but Isaac is the tallest person I know. Oh, no, that’s not true. Boyd is taller.”

“Stiles?”

“Sorry. Grab me a pill out of that bottle,” he said, gesturing to the orange prescription bottle on top of the dresser. He shuffled through his laundry, picking out two pairs of jeans, one pair that fit tighter on him for Derek, and then a two shirts, doing the same.

“This isn’t your Adderall,” Derek commented, shaking a single pill out for Stiles.

“No, uhm, I had to switch a couple of years ago. I keep building up a tolerance to it, and it doesn’t work,” he said with a shrug, taking the pill and dry swallowing it before returning to his task. “This should work fine, I think.”

He stepped into his own clothes, still considering curling up in the bed despite Erica’s threats. He liked his bed. It was a crappy bed, with a creaky frame that alerted Erica to anything he was doing, sexual or nightmares or otherwise, and it was old as hell, but it was his bed. It welcomed him home even when nothing else did, and cuddled him when he was alone at night.

No one else was going to do it, so he might as well find some comfort in the materialistic things he owned, not that he owned much except half a house, a mountain of student loan debt, a Jeep that had three wheels in the chop shop, and an overwhelming gaping hole where his best friend should’ve been.

He wondered if Derek being back might fill in that hole or if it would grow wider with their newfound age difference.

“You think so loudly,” Derek commented.

“Always have.”

Derek chuckled.

“What’s up?”

“I just hope that I haven’t changed too much that we stop mattering to each other,” Stiles admitted, looking up at Derek shyly. Derek reacted as Stiles figured he might, by frowning and stepping closer to Stiles like just his proximity would fix everything. Stiles hoped it might.

“I’m not gonna stop caring about you just because you’re a little bit older than I am,” Derek muttered. "You’ve been my best friend for so long, Stiles, nothing is gonna change that. You’re so important to me. You know that, right?”

“Of course, I do. I’ve always known that.”

Derek pulled Stiles closer to him then by his hips, burying his head into Stiles’ neck. Stiles looped his arms around his friend in return and just breathed him in. Derek tilted his head back and Stiles leaned down, letting their lips slid together. Derek tasted of stale morning breath and an aftertaste of Doritos. Derek had Paige in junior year, and Stiles had had to suffer through Derek’s wistful, love-struck sighs to know they had definitely gone all the way around the bases a couple of times. While Stiles hadn’t been particularly successful in romance in high school, he hadn’t done horribly afterwards in college and on. He’d had one night stands and casual dating and even a few brief committed relationships, but nothing serious enough to settle down with.

The point, Stiles reminded himself, pressing back against Derek and sliding his tongue past Derek’s lips, was that Derek and Stiles weren’t awkward virgins in any meaning of the words. They weren’t, and Stiles desperately wanted to take Derek apart slowly as he could. He had wanted to have more than just friendship with his best friend since they’d hit puberty, and maybe if Derek had been around after high school, he would’ve gotten the courage to do something about it, but as it was, Derek was here now, and Stiles couldn’t deny himself this anymore.

Stiles lost track of the minutes, unable to focus on how long they’d been kissing, just that they had and it was awesome. Derek’s body molded into his own and Stiles, stereotypically, couldn’t tell you if they were two bodies or one, unable to find the edge of him and the beginning of Derek. Derek was so familiar to him, so beautifully familiar, but kissing was new. Stiles loved discovering new things, especially new things with, or about Derek.

The water in the bathroom clanked off and Stiles groaned, pulling away. He took a long, lingering look at Derek, pleased that he looked just about as wrecked as Stiles felt.

“She’s going to murder me. Come on, we’ve got 10 minutes tops, get dressed.”

“So close to being the perfect sentence,” Derek whined.

Stiles chuckled, picking up Derek’s pile of clothes and pushing it into his arms.

“Put your clothes on, Hale.”

Derek grumbled to himself while first pushing his legs into the jeans, and then yanked the t-shirt over his head. His hair stuck up in a black haystack of disarray for a few moments before Derek swept his hand through it, taming it instantly. Derek Hale was one of those annoyingly attractive people that rolled out of bed being annoyingly attractive with no effort put into it. Stiles had once seen Derek get out of bed, severely hungover and on the verge of puking, and still have girls flock to him without a single ounce of effort put into his appearance. Derek had been sick for three weeks with a particularly nasty, resilient common cold, snot dripping from his nose and his eyes constantly watering, his skin pale and clammy, and still girls wanted him.

It was brilliant to watch Derek try and politely fend off offers to take care of him while trying to keep himself standing.

Stiles enjoyed it a little too much.

No one said Stiles was a good person, honestly.

“You good to go?” he asked, shoving his feet into his shoes, Derek following suit. Derek nodded and together they headed out the door, Stiles stopping long enough to grab his phone from the kitchen and his keys from the bowl by the door.

“Jesus, you still drive that hunk of junk?” Derek asked, gesturing to the rusting, older than both of them combined Jeep parked next to Erica’s bold red, year old Mustang.

“It’s a faithful little hunk of junk,” Stiles defended, stroking the Jeep’s pale blue exterior lovingly. “It’s not like I can afford a car payment anyway, and this old thing isn’t worth shit for trade. Although the old girl’s parts are worth more than her whole, so I might as well scrap her when she finally goes.”

They got in and Stiles coaxed the Jeep into a reluctant rumbling start.

“Atta girl,” he complimented, patting her dashboard.

“Hey, can I ask you some questions?”

“About what?”

“What I’ve missed.”

“I don’t know everything, just so you’re aware. I’m not some authority on the past nine years.”

Derek took this with a small nod and sat in the passenger’s seat while Stiles eased the Jeep onto the empty, suburban street. The only person awake on the street at this hour, he thought, was Mrs. Lancaster, the fitness-crazed 30-year-old married to someone twice her age. She jogged around the neighborhood and always gave Stiles a friendly wave when he left for work.

“What’d you go to school to school for?” Derek finally asked as Mrs. Lancaster and Stiles traded their routine waves.

“Double majored in history and education, graduated _cum laude_ in 2017,” Stiles answered.

“Wow, with honors, go Stilinski.”

Stiles chuckled, driving towards the center of town. He didn’t know where to go. He wanted to drive into the woods, park the car, and make out with Derek again like they were a couple of teenagers.

He flinched at the thought. Derek still was a teenager.

“So, you went to school at UCLA, and then what happened?”

“What do you mean, what happened? I graduated, I lived in a crappy apartment, I got fired from a couple of jobs, I moved into a crappy house, here I am.”

“What happened, as in, who did you make friends with, what did you do together, who have you fallen in love with,” Derek listed. “I missed so much of your life. I used to know all of it, every joke and anecdote, who you were talking about, hell, right down to what you had for dinner the night before. But now, I don’t know anything.”

“Well, I met Erica during First Days, and we were these two dorky kids who made DC references during the Ice Breakers. We had a couple first year classes together so we became really close. I met Scott a couple months later when there was a lacrosse game in the quad that I joined in on. He had this girlfriend, Allison, that he’s now married to. They have a beautiful baby girl named Ella who is, believe it or not, my god-daughter.”

“Someone let you near their child, willingly?”

“Excuse me, I am excellent with children.”

“Mirren handed you Paul and you almost cried,” Derek replied.

Stiles rolled his eyes.

“I was 13 years old, okay? I’ve grown since then. Anyway, Allison, Scott, Erica, and I shared an apartment the last two years of school, then for a couple more years afterward before the cutest couple of the century got hitched and got their own apartment. Erica and I moved out of that dump and into our own dump, but I suspect either I or she is going to have to find a new place very soon, and I don’t reckon it’s going to be her that’s packing up her stuff.”

“Why?”

“Boyd’s gonna propose soon. I helped him out with ring shopping.”

“Someone let you near their jewelry, willingly?”

“Will you stop that? I’ll have you know that I picked out the perfect ring for Allison, for Laura, and for Lydia, so don’t you give me any of your sass, Derek Silas Hale.”

“So do you teach?”

Stiles laughed and shook his head, taking the turn that headed out of town.

“No, I have a degree in teaching but never actually had a desire to teach, you know? I might have been better off if I had but I just couldn’t see myself going down that path. I don’t know what I was thinking when I signed up for that major.”

“You were undecided, though.”

“Well, I couldn’t be undecided forever. I had to pick, and I couldn’t think of anything I really wanted to do. So, I became a history and education major. The material was pretty interesting. I mean, I learned a lot of cool shit, but nothing that will actually help me out where I am now.”

“In a car with your best friend 9 years after he went missing?” Derek guessed.

“No, asshole. I mean, adulthood. Being 26 years old. Working two dead-end ends jobs to pay bills so I can continue working two dead-end jobs and not end up on the streets. Being a single, lonely, undesirable bachelor in the midst of happily wedded or close to wedded couples. My degree hangs on the wall of my home and does nothing to further my career in any manner. Of course, as Scott and Allison and Cora and Laura and Isaac and Talia and my dad and Erica and Boyd and everyone who has every talked to me for longer than 5 minutes has reminded me, that is entirely my fault for not actually going into teaching with my teaching degree. I was always afraid that I wouldn’t do anything worthwhile with my life and here I am, not doing anything worthwhile with my life, just another mindless, nameless drone in the corporate machine. I hate what I’ve become, and I hate that I’ve allowed myself to become this. I hate that I could do something about it, but I never do. I go to work, I come home, I sleep, repeat. I always have to work at one place or the other and I still don’t get anywhere in anything. I could’ve been so much happier at home, as one of my dad’s deputies, or trying to cut it as a journalist or a novelist, but I had to go and choose teaching. God, see what happens when you leave me alone? I turn into an idiot.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Derek muttered finally, almost sheepishly.

Stiles glanced at him, watching him hook and unhook his hands together over and over again, sliding them against one another in a nervous habit he and his father both had.

“Okay, well, clearly the past is not a pleasant subject, and neither is the present. So, let’s talk about something safer. Uhm. When do you want to go home?”

Derek shook his head violently at the question.

“I can’t. I want to stay here with you.”

“Derek, you have to.”

“No.”

“Yes, you kind of do. They’ve been missing you just as much, if not more than I have. You are their son, their flesh and blood. You can’t just leave them in the lurch just because you have the possibility of getting laid here.”

“It’s not that,” Derek grumbled under his breath, ears turning a cute pink. “I just don’t want to go home. Mom and I got into a fight right after you left, and it was bad, Stiles. It was really bad. I don’t want to see her yet.”

“Trust me, Derek, she wants to see you. She’s been over it for 9 years.”

“That’s not- I was coming to see you; I wanted to talk to you. And I got lost on my way, and there I was on your doorstep, and you were older. My mom is gonna be so much older, and you said Patrick is graduating. How am I supposed to fit in with a family that has been growing without me? I barely fit in here with you, and we’re best friends. My baby brother and sister are older than I am. How can I possibly go home and disappoint my family?”

“Why would you disappoint them?”

“Because I’m seventeen, Stiles! I’m supposed to twenty-six! I’m supposed to have gotten my degree and making headway in a career and I supposed to have a house with a serious relationship and plans for proposals! I supposed to bring honor and glory to the glorious and honorable Hale house! But instead, they get a gay son who went missing for 9 years and missed a good majority of his life being stuck in some kind of science fiction void.”

“Derek,” Stiles said, flicking his four-ways on and pulling over onto the side of the road. “Listen, man, I-”

“No. I can’t. I don’t want to go home yet, okay? Can you do that? Not tell anyone until I’m ready?”

Stiles sighed.

He owed the Hales a lot for the shit they’d put up with over the years, with and without Derek.

 _A lot_.

But he owed Derek a hell of a lot more.

“Yeah, I can do that.”

 

-&-

 

 “The beach?” Derek asked after Stiles had pulled the Jeep into a parking spot and tugged the keys from the ignition.

“Oh, yeah,” Stiles said with a smirk. He motioned for Derek to follow him, heading across the parking lot towards the beach.

“Stiles, we got kicked off the last beach we were on,” Derek reminded him.

“Oh, that cop had no sense of humor at all! We were lucky he didn’t call our parents, dude. Besides, we look less truant than we did then.”

“You look less truant. I don’t. And, he would’ve if I hadn’t shut you up. You were digging us into a bigger hole!”

“Oh, please!” Stiles scoffed. “I could’ve gotten us out of that.”

“The only reason we got out of that was because I lied to that cop.”

“My sweet prince, saving our asses by telling the cop we were just trying to get some smooch time in before your disapproving parents came back,” Stiles cooed, leaning into Derek with a flutter of eyelashes and a breathy sigh. “My hero. My savior. My unbelievably attractive knight in shining armor.”

“He believed it, didn’t he?” Derek shot back, shoving Stiles off with a snorting laugh. Stiles stumbled to the side but veered back to bump Derek off the path.

“You’re pretty convincing,” Stiles said.

“So are you.”

“Well, when you’re the son of law enforcement, you have to be.”

“You convinced me to go skinny dipping in the ocean,” Derek burst out. “In the middle of the day!”

“There was no one on the beach, stop it.”

“There was a cop, Stiles!”

“And we didn’t get in trouble for it! What are you still bitching about that for? It’s not like Mischief Night where we did get caught and they did call my dad and your parents and we were in such serious shit that nothing we said or did got us out of it.”

“Also your idea,” Derek replied.

Stiles shrugged and stopped at the edge of the path to toe off his shoes and socks. Derek followed suit.

“You totally went along with it, though, Hale.”

“Yeah, well,” Derek sighed. “I never could say no.”

“Exactly! And I come up with brilliant, however illegal plans for Mischief Night.”

Derek laughed, leaning his head back towards the sky.  

For their freshman year’s Mischief Night, Stiles had written up fake parking tickets from a ticket pad he had swiped from the Sheriff’s department. They’d snuck into the high school and Derek kept watch while Stiles got into the personnel files, jotting down the addresses of each of their teachers. Waiting at the end of the school’s driveway for the addresses was the entirety of the lacrosse team. The plan was that they would take the fake parking tickets and hunt down the teachers’ cars.

However, an alarm had been set off while Stiles and Derek broke into the school.

The team heard the sirens before Stiles and Derek did, and by the time they did, the team was long gone and Sheriff Seifert, the Sheriff before Stiles’ father became Beacon Hills’ Sheriff, was standing in the doorway to the office with his hands on his belt with a disapproving look on his face.

“I expected a little more from you, Hale,” Sheriff Seifert had said. He fixed Stiles with a look. “You, however…”

He trailed off.

Stiles had had a bit of a reputation with the deputies and therefore, with the sheriff himself. He didn’t have a record, thanks to his father being Sheriff Seifert’s favorite deputy, but he was a troublemaker and Sheriff Seifert knew it.

“You had to drag Hale down with you?”

“What can I say? I’m a bad influence, sir.”

The Sheriff had shaken his head and carted the pair off to the station where they waited, handcuffed to the bench near a desk. Talia and Andrew Hale, Derek’s parents, were disappointed that Derek hadn’t talked the both out of them out of it. Stiles’ father, however, was angry that he was raising a juvenile delinquent despite all of his best efforts.

“Who did you talk into misbehaving with you?” Derek asked as they both took a step onto the warm, dry sand. The sun had barely peaked over the trees as Stiles had driven them west out of town, heading towards the beach. It was a bright, warm summer morning, the seagulls wheeling overhead and families with children of all ages were beginning to roll in to beat the crowds.

“Scott, mostly. Erica wouldn’t have anything to do with my hijinks, and Allison would just shake her head in this derisive, but strangely fond kind of way. Scott was too eager, I guess, to say no.”

“You’re hard to say no to,” Derek said quietly, looking sidelong at him. Stiles slid his free hand into Derek’s with a smile and tugged him towards the ocean.

“Do you remember that time I stole Laura’s-”

Derek, unexpectedly but not unwelcomely, pressed his body into Stiles’ and slotted their lips together. Stiles let out a startled yelp into Derek’s mouth, Derek’s tongue darting out to almost capture the sound. Stiles melted into Derek, letting himself sink against him, trusting the now-younger boy to hold both of them up.

It took all of Stiles’ willpower to push himself away from Derek, taking in deep, steadying breaths. He took a second to convince himself not just to launch back at Derek like he was the last scrap of food he’d have for a while. He wasn’t starving, and Derek could wait.

“Listen, I am all for that, _all for it_ , let me tell you. However, I am an adult and cannot get kicked off any more public beaches.”

“Any more? Have you been kicked out of a lot of public beaches since you graduated high school?”

“An embarrassing amount, but half of them were Cora’s fault and not my own.”

“Sure, blame the baby.”

“I will.”

Derek grinned and continued towards the ocean waves lapping lazily at the shoreline.

“We should get ice cream,” Derek decided as the first wave tickled at their toes a few minutes later, the cold seeping into their skin at first touch.

“Yeah, ice cream sounds like an awesome idea.”

 

-&-

 

They spent the day at the beach, Stiles leaving his phone off to enjoy just Derek’s company. They got ice cream when the shop finally opened, and bought a funnel cake to share from a street vendor. They kissed against Stiles’ Jeep and against the wall of a department store, and several trees. And then, they had to drive back to Stiles’ house so they could figure out what to do from there.

Stiles drove back to his home, Derek’s fingers laced with his own over the gear shift, a happy humming in his chest radiating out to the rest of his body, tingling in his limbs and making his head fuzzy with warmth. He took the turns back without thinking, muscle memory more than actual thought.

The warmth drained from his body and filled with dread as he eyes landed on the Beacon County Sheriff’s Department cruiser sitting in his vacant driveway down the street.

His father was there.

“Oh, god,” he whimpered, glancing at Derek and then back to his father’s parked car. “We’re so fucked, Derek.”

“Why?”

“My dad’s here.”

“Okay?”

“Derek, do you remember what happens to us when my dad shows up?”

“Generally disappointment and groundings,” Derek said with a shrug.

“Yes, exactly,” Stiles said, having no other choice but to pull in beside the cruiser with a groan. “Except this time I’ve been harboring a missing person who is still 17. He could arrest me for this.”

“He won’t.”

Stiles parked.

He took a deep breath, and located his father getting out of the cruiser.

“Stay here for a minute,” Stiles requested before climbing out of the Jeep and heading towards his father.

“Stiles, where have you been? Why haven’t you been answering your phone?”

“I turned it off, why?”

“We were supposed to meet in Grovewood for lunch, and you never showed up, so I called you. And you didn’t pick up, your phone went straight to voicemail so I called the house and no one picked up. I called your job and they said you’d called out for the rest of the week. I called Erica and she told me you left the house early in the morning and she hadn’t heard from you since, but she was definitely lying to me. Where have you been?”

“Out?” Stiles said, willing himself not to glance over his shoulder at Derek. He did it anyway, and his father followed his gaze.

“Stiles,” his father said with a gasp of air. “Tell me that that is not Derek Hale.”

“That is not Derek Hale,” Stiles agreed.

The Sheriff fixed him with an unimpressed stare.

“Okay, so it’s Derek Hale.”

“Why is Derek Hale in your Jeep? Why doesn’t he look any older? Is that why you called out of work? Where have you been?”

“We went to the beach,” Stiles said slowly, carefully. The Sheriff glanced between Stiles and the Jeep, taking the two of them in.

“How long has Derek been back, Stiles?”

“Since about two o’clock this morning. He showed up on my doorstep, confused and just as young as he was when he disappeared,” Stiles finally admitted, glancing over his shoulder at Derek again. He motioned to Derek to join them, and watched as the boy climbed out of the Jeep. He came to stand at Stiles’ side, arms brushing slightly.

“Dad, Derek Hale. Derek, Sheriff Stilinski,” Stiles stated awkwardly.

“Stiles, I’ve known Derek Hale since you were both barely out of pull-ups,” the Sheriff answered.

“Yes, well, you see, Derek has been missing for a decade and hasn’t aged, so you never know. Your memory is not what it used to be, after all.”

The Sheriff narrowed his eyes at Stiles, a look that used to terrify Stiles to no end when he was a kid, and if he was honest, still sent chills down his spine. Even when his father was just a deputy, he had enough authority that most everyone, but especially Stiles, respected him and anything he did. He was the Sheriff’s favorite deputy and a shoe-in for election to Sheriff once Sheriff Seifert stepped down. Stiles loved his father, knew he loved Stiles as equally, but Stiles knew how much pull and power the Sheriff had as a father and as a member of the law enforcement.

“If I could still ground you, Stiles, I would.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“We need to talk,” the Sheriff stated, gesturing towards his son’s house. “Without your neighbors peaking at us.”

Stiles led the way towards the front door, Derek and his father following behind in an awkward, heavy silence. He unlocked the door and swung it open, staring into his living room entrance before stepping aside. His father entered, then Derek, with Stiles dragging himself through last, shutting the door behind him and locking it. He followed the pair into the kitchen where he busied himself making them a pot of coffee while they sat at the kitchen table.

“Someone had better explain to me what is happening here, right now,” the Sheriff stated.

“Well,” Stiles started to say before glancing at Derek with a shrug.

“I don’t know how it happened,” Derek answered. “I left my house after a fight with my mom, and I was headed for your house, but something happened. I don’t remember much, just taking a shortcut through the Preserve and then ending up here, kind of hazy and confused.”

The Sheriff looked at Derek, and Stiles watched his eyes soften. The Sheriff had always had a soft spot for Derek, one that Stiles exploited on many, _many_ occasions. Derek was Stiles’ only friend growing up, and was like a second son to the Sheriff. Stiles knew that the Sheriff loved Derek as deeply as Stiles loved him, although in different ways, so staring at a baby faced Derek Hale nine years after he’d disappeared from their lives could soften any heart.

“Have you called your parents yet?”

“No,” Derek said quickly with a shake of his head.

“Derek,” the Sheriff said gently.

“I had this conversation with Stiles already. I’m not ready for that. I can’t face them yet. I know they miss me. And I know I have to eventually. But I’m just not ready for them to see me like this.”

The Sheriff frowned.

“Derek, you are 26 legally, so I can’t make you go home as a police officer. But as your best friend’s father and your mother’s good friend, I urge you to go see your parents soon, before I call them myself and tell them where you are.”

“Give me some time, please,” Derek pleaded, leaning towards the Sheriff. The two shared a look, long and full of unspoken negotiations. Stiles turned and poured them each a mug of coffee, then fixed it the way they each took it. The Sheriff let out a defeated sigh just as Stiles brought them over their mugs.

“You have until the end of the week. If Talia does not call me up before Sunday afternoon in joyous tears declaring her son has returned, then I am driving out here, and dragging your little butt back to Beacon Hills whether you’re ready or not.”

Derek agreed easily.

The three sipped their coffee in silence for a while, no one daring saying anything. They kept their eyes down, not looking anywhere but at the liquid sloshing unsteadily in their cups.

“Stiles, I need to talk to you alone before I go,” the Sheriff said.

“Yeah, I figured you might. Do you want dinner before you head back?”

“Considering you missed our lunch, I think that would be a fair trade.”

Stiles stood and headed for the refrigerator. Before Derek had showed up, he had planned on just making a frozen pizza once he got home from work, since Erica wouldn’t be back for a few days and wouldn’t be there to scold him for being a hypocrite.

“I think Erica left some kale in here, Dad,” Stiles teased. “Do you want me to make some salad?”

“You keep that nasty stuff away from me and I won’t have to shoot you.”

“Oh, please. You don’t even have your service weapon on you.”

“It’s in the cruiser. I can go and get it.”

Stiles rolled his eyes and sorted through the refrigerator. They really needed to go grocery shopping from the looks of it. There was a package chicken left on a plate to thaw on one of the shelves, a note tagged to its plastic with Erica’s neat scrawl.

_Do not eat another frozen pizza, Stiles Stilinski. I know you. You’re lazy. Cook up some chicken and be good. –E_

“Okay, well, looks like we’re having chicken, thanks to Erica knowing me better than I know myself.”

“I love that girl,” the Sheriff sighed wistfully.

“Yes, yes, she is the daughter you never had. She feeds you unhealthy food when I’m not looking. I understand.”

Derek let out a snort which he tried to cover by coughing.

“I will have none of your treachery, Derek Silas Hale,” Stiles shot at Derek. Derek stuck his tongue out at Stiles in return.

“You two are children, you know that?” the Sheriff asked with a laugh.

“He started it, though,” Stiles whined, pointing like the Sheriff always told him was rude.

“Did not!”

“Did too!”

“Did not!”

“Did too!”

“Children!” the Sheriff called, a grin on his face. Stiles stuck his tongue out at Derek and Derek did the same, before Stiles turned back to making dinner. He listened as Derek asked the Sheriff questions about what had happened in Beacon Hills in the years he’d been gone. He’d asked Stiles, but having been away for just as long as Derek had, he didn’t have the most helpful of answers. Stiles put together ingredients like it was second nature to him. He had been taking care of his father since he was just shy of nine years old, after his mother had died. After he had gone to college, he took care of Scott and Erica, making sure Scott was doing his homework instead of making out with Allison all the time and Erica was taking her medication and eating the diet her doctor had put her on. He could cook, clean, and manage the budget, so he would make a damn fine househusband one day if anyone wanted him.

That was half of his problem, though. No one wanted him, not romantically at least. There was Derek, but he was 17 still and Stiles wasn’t getting any younger. During school, he’d been so focused on getting out that he hadn’t really partaken in relationships. Erica had Boyd, Scott had Allison, Cora had Isaac, Lydia had Jackson and Stiles had no one. He’d tried going on a couple dates, with a girl he’d known even before Derek, a girl he’d met at a blacklight party, a girl from his required athletic credit course who was amazing with a sword, and even a guy who insisted on taking his picture a couple of times whenever he was studying in the quad. He had plenty of drunken one-night stands with guys and girls, even a drag queen from Jungle when he was home for break one year, but he was still 0 for 4 relationship wise.

Dinner was quiet, mostly because Stiles was staring at his plate while he chewed. The Sheriff and Derek continued their catch-up session through half-chewed mouths of food. Nana Stilinski and Talia would be disgusted by their manners.

After dinner, Derek offered to do the dishes and clean up while Stiles and the Sheriff talked which of course, the Sheriff pounced on. He led Stiles into his backyard where Erica had set up a cute patio just off the steps. They strolled side by side to the fence the neighbor behind them had set up when they moved in before the Sheriff started.

“You know I want you to be happy, right?”

“Yeah, of course,” Stiles said.

“I want you to find someone that makes you get butterflies in your stomach when you think about them, and someone who makes you not work so hard. I want you to have everything your mother and I had, and even more.”

“Okay.”

“Stiles,” the Sheriff said, rubbing his head against his forehead. “That person cannot be Derek Hale.”

“Dad-”

“No, listen to me. I was all for you and Derek to get together and married and whatever when you were in high school, because I could see you both wanted that. But, it has changed.”

“I know.”

“I don’t think you do. He is 17 years old, Stiles, even if his birth certificate says otherwise.”

“I know, Dad.”

“It may not be illegal, but-”

“Dad! I know. You’re telling me anything I don’t know. Trust me, I’m trying not to do anything, you know, immoral, but I, I love him, you know? I have since we were kids, and here he is.”

“I know,” the Sheriff sighed.

“I used to be able to handle it, because I thought there was no chance I could ever,” Stiles said and shook his head. “But he apparently wants this too. And I don’t care what everyone will say about us, if there is ever an us, because I love him. God, shouldn’t that be enough? I love him enough to have waited nine years without him just so I could have him in my life again.”

The Sheriff pulled him in for a hug and Stiles clung on, burying himself in his father’s shoulder like he was a kid again.

“It’ll get easier. But you can’t, Stiles.”

“I know. God, I know.”

 

-&-

 

Derek got bored easily in Stiles’ small, empty house. Derek always got bored after an extended period of time in Stiles’ house when they were in school. He was used to always having built-in entertainment. He had three siblings, after all. He always had his youngest brother, Patrick, to teach basketball to, and Cora to rough house with, and Laura to debate with. Besides that, he lived in the Preserve, so he could go out running or exploring whenever he wanted.

Stiles lived in the suburbs; there was no endless woods bordering his backyard for Derek to entertain himself in.

The next day, Stiles took Derek out shopping for clothes with the emergency credit card Erica gave him.

“This is strictly for emergencies, Stiles. I mean it.”

Stiles had used it for more than just emergencies, but Erica let it slide because he paid for the bills so she could pay for her treatments.

The next day, Stiles and Derek spent a majority of the day making out on the couch before driving the Jeep two towns over to the drive-in theater where they watched half of a superhero movie before Derek distracted Stiles and they wound up making out for the rest of the night in the backseat.

The last two days Stiles took Derek to museums, the first was the American Radio Archive, a museum about the history of radio and radio broadcasting, which Derek actually found too interesting to make out with Stiles inappropriately. The second was the Carpinteria Valley Museum of History, which Stiles found too interesting to make out with Derek inappropriately.

“I’ve had fun,” Derek murmured as they walked back to the Jeep at the end of the day, Stiles buzzing with new knowledge. He forgot what learning new things felt like, how much he loved school for that reason. “I’ve had so much fun, but-”

“You gotta go home, I know.”

“I wish I could just stay here with you, but I have to go talk to my mom, and figure out what the fuck I’m going to do with my life now.”

“Then, let’s make the most of tonight,” Stiles said.

“You make it sound like we won’t ever see each other again,” Derek said quietly, pushing Stiles gently into the Jeep’s passenger side door. “We’ll see each other. I’ll make sure of it.”

Stiles sighed and leaned into Derek, wrapping his arms around the boy’s waist.

“I know. I also know that life likes to fuck with us, so I don’t know when I’ll see you next.”

“Stiles,” Derek muttered before he kissed Stiles. Each kiss lit Stiles up, rewiring him for maximum brightness. His cells buzzed, bumping clumsily into each other. It was addictive. “We’ll see each other.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

“Mmm, good,” Stiles said, pressing quick kisses into Derek’s jawline. “How about we go home, make out a little bit, and pretend to watch some movies?”

“How about,” Derek countered, “we go home and do more than make out?”

Stiles took a deep breath out of surprise.

“Derek,” Stiles replied, putting his hands on Derek’s hips and pushing him an arm’s length away. “Are you sure about that? I mean, that’s a big step, even for us.”

“I trust you.”

“That’s good. But that’s not all there is. You’ve never had sex with a guy, Derek, unless you had a secret gay life I didn’t know about. I don’t want you to rush into this.”

“I’m not rushing. I’ve wanted this since we hit puberty, for Christ’s sake.”

Stiles shook his head.

“Wanting it and being ready are two entirely different things,” Stiles said gently. “Trust me; I know what it’s like.”

Derek paused and looked Stiles in the eyes, searching almost.

“What happened?”

“There was this boy,” Stiles said with a shrug. “He was cute and nice, and pretty much everything I thought I wanted, but he wanted to move faster than I was comfortable with.”

“He didn’t-”

“He tried to pressure me, saying that if I really liked him, I’d sleep with him already and not be a tease all the time. I tried telling him that I was a virgin, that I just wasn’t ready, but he shut me down every time. He, uhhh, well, Erica beat the hell out of him when she found out. He never even looked at me afterwards.”

“Thank God for Erica,” Derek said.

“My daily prayer,” Stiles said with a laugh. “It made me super big on consent and waiting, though, which is both a blessing and a curse when it comes to getting laid.”

“You realize that I’m not a virgin, right?”

“Yeah, trust me; you would not stop talking about Paige for weeks after it happened. I wanted to punch you in the face so hard it erased all knowledge of the event.”

“My point is that I’m not afraid of sex, and I’m certainly not afraid of you. You’re not pressuring me into this. Quite the opposite, actually. I trust you. I, I am ready for this. I am, if you are, I mean.”

“I am, holy shit, I definitely am. Let’s get the fuck home, yeah?”

 

-&-

 

Stiles and Derek slammed through the front door, the door handle striking the living room wall hard enough to send the picture of Stiles and Erica arm in arm at graduation clattering to the floor. Derek was the stronger of the two, Stiles’ legs wrapped around his waist as he carried Stiles easily from the Jeep. Their skin burned hot where it touched, a river of electric shocks running just below the surface like power lines igniting them. They kissed like they were trying to meld themselves together into one being. Stiles couldn’t keep his hands still, gripping Derek’s hair then running down his neck, and over his biceps, wandering to tug up the back of Derek’s shirt.

“Bedroom,” Stiles gasped as Derek mouthed along his jaw, trying mostly in vain to get the front door shut with his foot.

“Front door,” Derek grunted.

“Right, okay,” Stiles said, taking a hand loathingly off Derek and reaching out to slam the door shut. “Now can we go to the bedroom? We seriously need fewer clothes.”

“You are just as impatient as you always have been,” Derek said with a chuckle, pressing Stiles into a bare space on the wall and latching on to a spot just behind his ear.

“God, you drive me insane,” Stiles whimpered. Derek pushed his hips forward in response, their erections grinding together through four layers of cloth and denim. “You always have.”

Derek hummed, dragging his teeth carefully over the mark he made. Stiles slid his hands into Derek’s hair and yanked his head up to meet Stiles’ mouth in an open, sloppy kiss. Stiles wasn’t known for grace and elegance. He often made up what he lacked with his enthusiasm and eagerness. Most partners found it adorable. Kat Atonic, the drag queen from Jungle that Stiles brought home for a night or several, had absolutely adored Stiles’ enthusiasm and called him up whenever she was lonely.

“Stop thinking,” Derek growled, lifting Stiles up off the wall to head for his bedroom.

“Sorry, was thinking about the drag queen I, you know what? Doesn’t matter,” Stiles said, reaching for the door handle to his door.

“What drag queen?”

“There was this drag queen I may have had a mutually beneficial sexual relationship with for a couple of weeks. It doesn’t matter.”

“You were fuck buddies with a drag queen?”

“Yeah,” Stiles said with a smile. “Kat was amazing, though. She was one of my first, you know, sex partners, and she took care of me, made sure I was ready.”

“I don’t even know how to respond to that.”

“I’ll be your Kat Atonic, don’t worry,” Stiles cooed, pressing kisses into Derek’s cheeks and mouth teasingly. Derek rolled his eyes and laid Stiles out on the bed, watching as Stiles’ whole body relaxed, falling open for Derek to see and to touch.

“Stiles,” Derek groaned, sinking between Stiles’ knees and staring. “God, _Stiles._ ”

“Come down here and kiss me already, you dork,” Stiles said. Derek obliged, covering Stiles with his body and reconnecting their lips. He slid his hand down Stiles’ side and to the back of his thigh, pulling Stiles up to meet him. Stiles moaned into Derek’s mouth, tugging the younger boy down by his thick, dark hair.

“Less clothes,” Derek decided.

“Mmm, yeah, less. Definitely.”

Derek sat back, and tugged his shirt over his head. Stiles whimpered. He’d seen Derek shirtless plenty of times in his life, but never like this, never with the ability to touch and taste and _have_. Stiles dragged his fingertips slowly over Derek’s stomach, over the lines and to the waistband of Derek’s jeans.

“These too,” Stiles said.

Derek clambered off the bed and undid his jeans. Stiles watched as Derek pushed them down so they pooled at his feet. Stiles sighed.

“You are gorgeous, you know that?”

Derek grinned and gestured towards Stiles’ clothing.

“You next.”

Stiles sat up and tugged his shirt up over his head, tossing it at Derek before lying on his back and making quick, efficient work of his jeans. Derek watched with rapt attention, his eyes following Stiles’ every movement. Derek pulled the jeans from Stiles’ legs and dropped them to the floor.

“I have been thinking about this for years,” Derek mumbled, crawling back over Stiles and resting his knees on either side on Stiles’ hips. “Even when I was with Paige, I wanted you.”

Stiles grinned mischievously at Derek before he surged up and flipped them over, Derek landing on his back in the middle of the bed.

“Let me,” Stiles said quietly, staring into Derek’s eyes.

Derek let him.

Stiles kissed slow, lazy trails down Derek’s neck and chest, glancing up to find Derek watching him intently the entire way. He watched Derek watching him as he kissed even further.

“Derek, are you sure?”

“Yeah, yes, god, _yes_.”

“You can stop me at any time, you know that, right?”

“I can guarantee I won’t want you to stop.”

“We can always stop,” Stiles said. “Now or in 15 minutes or 15 years, I will _always_ stop.”

“I know,” Derek replied. “I know you won’t hurt me.”

Stiles smiled at Derek and returned to his kisses, finding himself at the waistband of his boxers. He stared up at Derek before he dipped down to mouth along the younger boy’s hard cock, straining against the fabric of his boxers.

“Shit,” Derek moaned. “More, please.”

Stiles slid his hands under the waistband and eased them down under his ass and then down off his legs. With Derek completely bare, spread out on his bed, Stiles couldn’t stop himself from smiling. He wanted this so bad, just as Derek had, but for much longer.

He took a second to appreciate the boy before him, the long lean lines of muscle from hours of basketball practice, the lazy smirk on his lips, the thick eyebrows that made him look eternally angry, and finally, the hard cock curved up against his belly. Stiles sighed and moved forward to lick a tentative swipe up the underside of Derek’s cock. Derek shuddered, his hips lifting up off the bed towards Stiles.

“Fuck,” Stiles whispered. He wrapped his hand around the base and stared Derek straight in the eyes as he took Derek’s head into his mouth. Derek whimpered as Stiles slid his tongue in swirls, reaching out but dropping his hand halfway. Stiles slid their fingers together and guided their hands to his hair. Derek took the encouragement and gripped gently at the roots, not pushing or pulling, just holding.

Stiles kept his eyes on Derek’s as he sank down, taking more of his cock into his mouth. Derek groaned.

“Your fucking mouth, Stiles,” he mumbled. “How are you even real?”

Stiles smirked and winked at him. He began to bob his head, keeping his eyes on Derek without blinking. Derek whined, shifting his grip on Stiles’ hair.

“I want you, Stiles, now.”

Stiles pulled off with, even he had to admit it, an obscene _pop_. He moved onto his knees and shuffled over Derek. He pulled open his bedside drawer and withdrew a bottle of lube and a condom, playfully dropping them on Derek’s face.

“I don’t care how much you beg,” Stiles said. “I am taking this as slow as I want.”

Derek nodded as Stiles edged Derek’s legs open even further and stroked the insides of Derek’s thighs lovingly.

“I am going to take such good care of you that you are ruined for any other man,” Stiles promised.

“As if there’s going to be any other men,” Derek replied. Stiles hummed and slicked up three fingers and rubbed it until it was warmed. He started with one finger, pressing in slowly and whispering reassurances. He watched Derek carefully, stretching and pushing until his fingertips brushed Derek’s prostate.

“Oh, _fuuuuuck_ ,” Derek groaned out, throwing his head back. Stiles leaned over and pressed his mouth against Derek’s throat, sucking and nipping. When Stiles was satisfied by how easily his fingers slid in and out of Derek, he withdrew them, answered by an unsatisfied whine.

“Yeah, yeah, I know, you big baby, give me a second,” Stiles grumbled. He got off the bed and tugged off his boxers, allowing his own erection to finally, _finally_ spring free and join the party. He ripped open the foil wrapper with his teeth and quickly rolled the condom over himself before climbing back to Derek. “You sure?”

“I am 100 percent, absolutely, completely sure I want this, and I am ready. Please, Stiles,” Derek said, touching Stiles’ arm.

“Alright, come here,” Stiles said. Derek sat up and scooted down the bedspread to meet Stiles in the middle. Stiles moved behind him and sank against the pillows, back against the headboard. Derek turned and raised his eyebrows. “Trust me.”

“I do.”

Derek climbed into Stiles’ lap, and kissed Stiles deeply, passionately, in a way that seemed to have no end and that was fine by Stiles. Stiles positioned himself at Derek’s slicked entrance and pushed up into him. Derek gripped Stiles’ shoulder for balance or support, but sank down to meet Stiles.

“It’s never felt like this,” Derek said, voice breaking.

“What hasn’t?”

Derek gave Stiles a look.

“You think you’re the only one who’s experimented.”

“Are you telling me,” Stiles said, pushing further inside, “that you’ve fingered yourself when you jerked off?”

“Is that such a surprise?”

“Coming from you, kind of.”

Derek chuckled and relaxed as Stiles bottomed out, leaning forward to rest his forehead against Stiles.

“Maybe I’ll let you watch next time.”

Stiles whimpered at the thought of Derek filling himself with his own fingers in a desperate attempt to get off, one hand buried deep in his ass while the other fisted his leaking cock, Stiles’ name tumbling off his tongue as he came.

“I think I’d like that.”

Derek kissed Stiles before raising himself up onto his knees, dragging Stiles’ cock out of him a bit, then sinking back down. Stiles couldn’t bring himself to move, watching as Derek moved on his cock like he was an expert, watching as he fucked himself, adjusting on each fall until he found his own prostate. Derek winked as he moved faster, harder.

“I’m not as delicate as you seem to believe I am. I haven’t done this before,” Derek said, breathing labored slightly. “But that doesn’t mean I haven’t fantasized, haven’t imagined, haven’t _practiced_.”

Stiles’ mouth hung open.

Derek was perfect, absolutely perfect.

Stiles moved to meet Derek’s down strokes on his cock and sank away as Derek pulled off, faster and faster. They stifled moans in each other’s throats, Stiles’ hand stroking Derek’s thick cock between them, their soundtrack their combined whimpers and groans, and the slap of skin on skin.

“I love you,” Derek whispered into Stiles’ open mouthed kiss. “God, I love you so much.”

“I love you,” Stiles whispered back. “Completely.”

“I’m sorry I was gone. I’m sorry I left you alone for so long.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Stiles gasped.

“It does.”

“You’re here now. That’s all that matters.”

Derek nodded. Stiles lifted him up and pushed them over, pressing Derek into the mattress. He slammed as hard as he dared into Derek as deep as he could go, and couldn’t help his half-muffled shout echoed by Derek’s own. Derek curled up towards Stiles, wrapping his arms and legs around him, whispering how he loved Stiles so much.

“Please tell me you’re close,” Stiles begged. “I can’t last much longer.”

“I’m so close, dear Christ.”

“If your mother could hear that mouth, Derek Hale,” Stiles teased breathlessly.

“Don’t talk about my mother when you’re buried balls deep in my ass, Stilinski,” Derek replied. Stiles grinned and kissed him.

“Love you.”

“Make me cum and I’ll love you even more.”

Stiles pressed a kiss into Derek’s forehead, slamming harder and faster into Derek’s hole. Derek reached between them and laced fingers with Stiles, pumping his cock almost mercilessly, moans falling easily from their mouths, near guttural sounds.

“Fuck, fuck, _fuck_ , Stiles. Please.”

Stiles felt Derek’s orgasm slam through him, his whole body tensing and bowing up into Stiles as he let out a loud, long groan. He watched in fascination as Derek came strings across their chests. Stiles fucked into him two, three more times before his own orgasm hit him. He buried his head in Derek’s neck, not quite sobbing out his name.

“Shit,” Derek said quietly after a few minutes, letting them both come down from their highs. “You’ve effectively ruined me for any other man.”

Stiles chuckled and carefully pulled out of Derek. He tugged off the condom and tied it before tossing it towards the trashcan. He collapsed off to the side and let Derek snuggle into him.

“That was the best sex I have ever had,” Stiles commented into the dark room.

“Mmm, same.”

Stiles let minutes pass in silence until he was sure Derek was asleep.

“I love you, Derek Hale.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to the beautiful, wonderful Meredith for beta'ing and everything else she has done for this story so far!   
> Comment, subscribe, kudos, bookmarks, share it, however you show your love, all are greatly appreciated.   
> You can find me on
> 
> [Tumblr](packyourbagsrightnow.tumblr.com)
> 
> and Twitter (@hypocorismm) if you want to talk Sterek and Teen Wolf. :)
> 
> -K


	2. Chapter 2

Derek caught a bus from Stiles’ town back to Beacon Hills before Stiles was even awake. He couldn’t leave Stiles if Stiles was looking at him, if there was a chance Stiles would stop him. If Stiles asked, Derek would stay. God, if Stiles asked Derek to rob a bank or steal the moon, Derek would do it. Laura usually laughed about how whipped Derek was by a boy he wasn’t even sleeping with. He would do anything for Stiles, which was terrifying and thrilling and absolutely heart-wrenching when Stiles wasn’t his.

But after that night, after the way Stiles took him apart and told him he loved him, Stiles was his. Stiles _loved_ him. Jesus, Stiles had told him he loved him, and Derek had to leave instead of staying with him.

He hated this.

But he promised Deputy- _Sheriff_ Stilinski that he would go home by that day, and he knew better than lie to Stiles’ father. He had watched Stiles lie, half of the time successfully to his father and a stone always settled in his stomach, weighing him down with guilt. He trusted Stiles’ father, respected him too much.

As soon as he stepped foot on Beacon Hills soil, he felt wrong. He’d felt wrong since he’d stepped up onto Stiles’ front step, and the door had opened. He’d felt wrong with Stiles staring at him, his features different but the same, older but still him. He hadn’t stopped feeling wrong, even as Stiles told him he loved him. But this was something else. He’d been here just a handful of days ago, and yet everything was different.

The air was thicker, Derek thought. The bus station used to be busier, especially for a Sunday afternoon. He stepped up to a pay phone, pressed a couple of quarters into the slot and dialed from memory. It was just last week he’d called looking for the then-Deputy Stilinski to get ahold of Stiles, but it was also 9 years ago that he’d- He stopped. He had enough of a headache. He didn’t need to give himself an aneurysm trying to sort out timelines. It was like when Stiles would try and explain Doctor Who plotlines to him.

Useless.

“Sheriff’s Department,” a young male voice answered.

“Hi, I’m looking for Sheriff Stilinski. Is he in?”

“Who may I say in calling?”

“Derek,” he said nervously.

“Just a moment while I patch you through.”

He tapped his foot impatiently until John Stilinski’s familiar voice filtered through the phone.

“Sheriff Stilinski.”

“Hey Sheriff, it’s Derek.”

“Derek, good to hear from you. Are you home yet?”

“Sort of.”

“Sort of,” the Sheriff monotoned.

“I’m at the bus station in Beacon Hills, but I don’t have any way to get from here to the house, and that’s like a five mile walk.”

“I see.”

“Yeah. Can you help?”

“I’ll be right over,” the Sheriff said. “Don’t go anywhere.”

“Wasn’t really planning on it, to be honest.”

“Good.”

The Sheriff hung up and Derek put the phone back, leaving the extra change that popped out for whoever might need it. He went to find a seat outside by the entrance and decided to watch. The station wasn’t busy by any means, but there were people milling about from the bus Derek had gotten off. He watched a woman juggle two suitcases, a toddler, an infant, and a diaper bag while arguing vehemently on the phone. A couple a few feet to her left was also having a passionate argument, with chest poking and violent gesturing.

The Sheriff pulled up in a big SUV with Beacon County Sheriff’s Department emblazoned in bold lettering along its side, his window rolled down and his eyes covered in mirror-like sunglasses.

“Hale,” the Sheriff said, nodding towards him as Derek drew closer. “It’s good to see you.”

“You too, John.”

He climbed into the SUV and clicked his seatbelt. The car ride was quiet, neither knowing what to say or what to do. They kept quiet as the Sheriff took all of the familiar turns through town towards the Preserve where Derek had grown up. Things were different. Shops were closed down, and the parks weren’t taken care of, and there was just an overall feel of abandonment to this town, neglected almost.

“What happened?” Derek whispered to himself.

“The town hasn’t been doing so great recently. People are leaving, businesses are closing down, and we just don’t have enough in the budget to fix everything, even with your mother and father donating so generously.”

“That’s awful,” Derek breathed out, and then they were pulling onto the long curving dirt driveway that would eventually lead to the Hale house. “I’m scared.”

“It’s just your family,” the Sheriff reassured him.

“I know, but I just, I don’t think I’ll ever be ready for this.”

They reached the clearing and pulled in beside unfamiliar cars. Derek watched as the front door opened and his mother, who’d always had preternaturally good hearing, stepping out onto the porch, squinting at the SUV.

She was just as beautiful as Derek remembered, her dark hair longer now and pulled back into a messy bun. She was wearing a pair of gym shorts and a Beacon Hills Cyclones fundraiser t-shirt, her feet bare. Talia Hale was a business woman, she liked order and she was fiercely good at her job, but when she was home, she liked to lounge around in sweatpants and tank tops, feet bare and her hair messy. It was something Derek had always loved and admired about his mother, her ability to kick ass in whatever she endeavored to do but also have the ability to relax and enjoy her time when she had it.

John got out first and waved.

“Good afternoon, Talia.”

“What brings you by, John?”

“Well, uhm, I have something that belongs to you, actually.”

“Really? What’s that?”

Derek drew in the deepest breath he could, let it out slowly, and popped out the door to the truck, and climbed out into view. Talia stopped and stared.

She took the steps off the porch slowly.

She was careful as she walked across the lush green lawn to him.

She placed her hands on his face delicately, afraid that if she pressed too hard Derek might just disappear again, vanish from her world.

“Derek?” she whispered out, the word almost taken away on the wind as it gusted between them.

“Yeah, Mom. It’s me. I’m home.”

She gasped and the tears shimmering in her eyes spilled down her cheeks. He could see the years he’d missed etched into the lines on her face, around her eyes and mouth. She dragged him close, wrapping her arms around him tightly. She buried her face into Derek’s neck and wept.

“I’m so glad you’re home.”

Derek held her tight in return.

“I’m glad to be home.”

 

-&-

 

Talia was the only one home, Derek discovered, as she led him into the empty house, demanding the Sheriff come too.

“I’m on duty, Talia, I should really get back-”

“Nonsense. You come in for a cup of coffee like a good boy.”

Talia and John were close to the same age, but Derek always marveled at how Talia treated him just like another one of her children.

“One cup,” John agreed.

He stayed for three before a deputy radioed him and he had to go.

“Do we need to come down and fill out paperwork?” Talia asked, gesturing to Derek.

“Get settled in first, then come see me tomorrow,” the Sheriff said. “Today, have your son all to yourself.”

Derek sat with his own cup of coffee long since cold and barely touched at the kitchen table, his mother sending him grateful little smiles every so often. He hadn’t inspected the house yet, still reeling from the changes in his mother.

He could see she was trying not to ask all of the questions dancing through her mind. Several times she had opened her mouth and squeaked out a sound before she snapped her mouth shut or taken a big gulp of coffee to stop herself.

Finally, even Talia’s iron will could not stop her, and she burst with questions.

“How are you so young? Where have you been? Why didn’t you come home sooner? Why haven’t you aged?”

Derek paused for a second, chewing on his lip before answering. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” Talia asked doubtfully.

“I don’t- I left that night, I left the house to go see Stiles. I left and decided to take the shortcut through the Preserve, and I have no idea what happened, because the next thing I knew I was on Stiles’ front porch and it was nine years later, and I hadn’t changed a bit while everyone around me had.”

“You were at Stiles’ house? Why didn’t he call me?”

Derek scratched at the back of his neck and mumbled out quickly, “I asked him not to.”

Talia hung her head for a moment, and Derek knew that she was gathering her thoughts before she reprimanded him. This is the action that always came before groundings. Derek and Laura had been terrified of this action growing up.

Stiles had even been terrified of this action.

“Why did you ask Stiles not to call?”

“Because I,” Derek stopped. How do you tell your mother, the woman that gave birth to you and took care of you your entire life, that you were scared to come home? Scared that there wouldn’t be a place for you anymore? Scared that you were afraid that your family had moved on?

“You can tell me anything,” Talia said.

No, I can’t, Derek thought. It was 9 years ago for Talia, but it was just a few days for Derek, and the realization that he wasn’t proper Hale material still stung.

“I wasn’t thinking, I’m sorry. I knew I wouldn’t see Stiles for a while if I went home, and after I realized I’d already missed so much, I didn’t want to miss anymore.”

Talia watched him, almost as if she were memorizing him.

“You really haven’t changed at all,” she breathed out.

“Yeah, you’ll have that when you step through a glitch in the time-space continuum and end up nine years later,” Derek sighed. She narrowed her eyes at him.

“You’ve been spending too much time with Stiles.”

Derek smirked and fiddled with his mug. His father often told him that, sighing heavily as if Derek’s learned Stilesness was a burden.

“Mom, what do I do now?” he finally asked, the silence becoming too much for all his whirring thoughts.

“Well, you,” she started, then paused. Her eyebrows furrowed. “I don’t know. You could go to school, or get a job. You could join the army. Or whatever else you wanted to do. We have to go to the police station tomorrow, but besides that, I don’t know where we go from here, Derek. But the important thing is that we can go somewhere now, now that you’re home.”

 

-&-

 

Derek and Talia were curled up on the couch underneath an old ratty blanket that Gamma Hale had knit when Derek has a baby when the front door opened and his father trailed inside. He stopped, his briefcase in one hand, keys in the other. Derek glanced over the back of the couch and smiled shyly at his father. He and his father, the last time they had seen each other, had had a disagreement about Derek’s “lifestyle choices.”

He wasn’t sure if his father had calmed down about that, but he hoped so.

It had been nine years.

“Talia, can I speak with you?” Andrew asked, his voice clipped. Derek frowned as Talia extracted herself from the blanket and padded into the kitchen after her husband.

Derek had come out to them the night before his graduation, the night he disappeared into a nine year void. He had wanted to be honest with them, because he loved them and he didn’t want to go off to college and possibly come back with a boyfriend without telling them first. Although, he also had intended, hopefully, for that boyfriend to be Stiles.

“You’re not gay,” Andrew had ground out.

“You’re right, I’m not,” Derek had replied. “I’m pansexual.”

“What does that even mean? You’re attracted to pans?”

Derek groaned and shook his head.

“No. I just like everyone, boys, girls, everything in between.”

“Sweetheart, are you sure that this isn’t just a phase? You know, you’re curious about so much. Maybe you’ll get over this once you try it out,” Talia had said.

“No. This isn’t just a phase. This is who I am. I like the people I like, and you can’t change that.”

“This is not who we raised you to be,” Andrew had replied.

“What? Yes, it is! You raised me and this is who I am!”

“Do not speak to me like that, young man! No son of mine is going to parade around this town, claiming he’s into everything. I will not tolerate that in this family. We are a staple to this community, and we cannot have a son who is gay.”

“I’m not gay!” Derek had protested.

“Damn fucking straight, you’re not,” Andrew said, slamming his hand onto the table.

“Andrew, calm down,” Talia said patiently, placing her hand, in an attempt at placation, over her husband’s. Andrew shook his head and pulled his hand away.

“I’m going out,” he said before stalking out of the house, grabbing his keys as he went. Talia and Derek had sat in silence at the dining room table, Derek staring at the fresh paint peeking out from behind dozens of frames filled with family art. The Hales were proud, they were a strong band of individuals that supported each other and loved each other, stood up for and stood behind one another. There wasn’t a Hale alive that wouldn’t give everything they had up for the sake of their family.

Well, there was one, Derek had thought.

“Why doesn’t he-”

“Derek, what are you trying to get at?” Talia had broken in. “Is this some kind of rebellion? You want to show us that you’re not like your sisters? What is it?”

“I was trying to be honest. You told me I could trust you, could come to you with anything.”

Talia shook her head, staring at her hands on the table.

“Go to your room, Derek. We’ll talk about this later.”

“Mom-”

“Room, Derek.”

Derek had stood up and trudged his way upstairs to his room. He had been so angry, so upset at his parents for lying to him his entire life. It was obvious that he _couldn’t_ trust them or come to them if this is how they reacted. He had sat at his computer, stewing, before he heard his mother trudge up the stairs, tell Cora to go to bed, and go into her own room.

He needed to talk to someone.

The rest, Derek thought then, watching the door to the kitchen intently, was history. He had just wanted to talk to Stiles, to figure out what the fuck happened, and here he was nine years later. Apparently, though, his father hadn’t changed.

He had lost his son for nine years.

Derek had vanished for _nine years_.

And that wasn’t enough time to change his mind? To make him realize his son was more important that his pride?

He stood up, furious, and followed his parents into the kitchen.

“Derek, go ba-” Andrew started.

“No. Listen to me, I’m your son, and I get that you raised me, and I am grateful that you gave me this nice life without ever having to want for anything, but I will not stand for you to demean who I am just because you don’t agree with it. You are Andrew Hale, a pillar of the community, and you expect that community to respect you if you disown your child because he’s queer? Are you kidding me?”

Andrew stood frozen, while Talia tried to unsuccessfully hide her smile behind her hand.

“I have been gone for nine years, and instead of being happy or excited that your son is home, you act like I’m some inconvenience, that I should’ve stayed gone.”

Andrew opened his mouth to speak and Talia clamped her hand over his mouth.

“No, you listen to your son.”

“Being gay, which I am _not_ , is not anything offensive, disgusting, or shameful. You like Stiles. Stiles is gay. Well, no, he’s not.”

Derek stopped.

“It doesn’t matter. You shouldn’t hate people or be disrespectful to them because of who they want to kiss and spend time with. It’s 2022, get the fuck over yourself.”

Talia withdrew her hand.

“Andrew, do you have anything to say to Derek?” she asked.

Talia had always been a force to be reckoned with, strong and unstoppable. It was weird, Derek thought, that she had allowed her husband to treat Derek that way to begin with, unless she had felt that way as well. Maybe the time had changed her tune. Talia was reasonable. Andrew, however, was not.

“I’m sorry for the things I said to you,” Andrew said woodenly, like it was poison to say those words. “I’m glad you’re home, Derek.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Derek said. He’d take what he could get. “Can I help get dinner started?”

 

-&-

 

Talia had called both of his sisters and invited them for dinner, and had made sure Patrick was planning on coming home that night. That was apparently a problem with Patrick now, him not coming home until late if he came home at all. Derek remembered Patrick as a homebody, barely able to go one night without having to talk to their mother or father. He’d grown up if the boy in the pictures on the mantle had any say. He looked more like Talia now, features more delicate than Derek’s own, more Hale than Derek who had taken after his father in every way.

The first car pulled up into the driveway and Derek’s heartrate jumped dramatically, heart deciding it was less interested in being a heart and more interested in being a jack rabbit.

“Okay, just relax,” Talia said, taking Derek’s hands. “It’s just your sister. You grew up with her. It’ll be okay.”

Derek nodded stiffly, unable to speak or move or think rationally.

The front door opened and Laura called out, “Okay, what’s this all about? You never invite us to dinner. You’re always just like, we’re having lasagna if you want proper food tonight instead of take-out and microwaveable mac and cheese. I mean, I’ve never actually gotten a call asking me if I’d like to come to dinner.”

Talia moved out of the kitchen to greet Laura, leaving Derek alone in the kitchen. He gripped the edge of the counter until his knuckles turned white with pressure.

He could hear his mother talking to his older sister while another car pulled up and parked.

“Oh, look, the prodigal son,” Laura laughed and Derek started. Had she seen him?

“Oh, shove it, Laura,” an unfamiliar voice replied, full of tenor. That had to be Patrick, then. “What’s going on?”

“Mom’s being super secretive,” Laura replied.

“Just go into the dining room and sit down like the good little children I raised you to be,” Talia said, her voice full of fondness and exasperation. “And here’s Cora. Excellent.”

She called for Derek’s father to emerge from his study as Derek heard her hustle the rest of her offspring into the dining room.

“Seriously, Mom, what is going on? Are you pregnant again? Please, say no. I don’t want another sibling. These two are enough,” Laura begged. Derek took a deep breath. He wasn’t ready for this. He wouldn’t ever be ready for this. He was now Patrick’s age. He was a child compared to his sisters.

“I’m not pregnant. Just sit down.”

“Who’s pregnant?” Andrew asked, joining his family at the dining table.

“No one, honey.”

“You had better not be pregnant, either one of you,” Andrew warned. “You have enough children, Laura.”

“Says the man who fathered four.” Cora’s voice finally came through. She sounded older, which would make sense, instead of the barely pubescent girl that Derek had last seen. She sounded, amazingly, like Laura. Derek bet that if he mentioned that, she would be furious with him. She hated, at least she had, that she and Laura were similar in any fashion. Maybe that had changed over his missing years, but he would definitely bet that it hadn’t.

“I have something I need to tell you, and you all need to be sitting.”

Silence fell over the dining room and Talia bustled through the swinging door to him. She smiled encouragingly.

“It’s okay,” she said quietly. She took his hand and led him into the dining room. His siblings stared at him, their alternately green and brown eyes wide with disbelief. It was Laura who rose first, her face pudgier with her pregnancies, laugh lines crinkled around her eyes. She moved around the table to reach out and touch his face, her thin fingers clammy against his cheek.

“Wow,” Patrick breathed out.

There had never been such a silence in Derek’s entire life, not in the Hale house. Even when it was quiet, it was much louder than any other house Derek had been in. There was always someone making noise, someone’s radio playing, someone talking on the phone, someone watching TV. There was always noise.

But now, there was nothing, just stunned silence.

“What happened?” Cora finally asked, her voice loud in the quiet.

Derek shrugged and took Laura’s hand in his own.

“I just went for a walk, and found myself nine years later,” he explained, walking her and himself to their chairs, sinking into them.

“That’s some science fiction shit right there,” Patrick commented.

Derek laughed and it seemed to break the tension. Cora picked up a piece of potpourri and threw it at Derek.

“You suck for doing that to us,” she stated.

“I know. If I had known what was going to happen, I wouldn’t have gone, but it’s too late for that, isn’t it?”

He shrugged again. Laura was still clutching his hand tightly, not wanting to let go.

“So, what do we do now?” Cora asked, her question directed not at Derek but instead at Talia.

“We adjust. We adjusted when he disappeared, we’ll do it again.”

 

-&-

 

Adjusting included Derek spending a very long time at the station the next morning with his mother, explaining what had happened and asking what they could do next.

The nice Sheriff’s deputies didn’t have a clue.

Adjusting included taking shifts at Cora’s bakery whenever she needed him, which was nice since he got to spend time with her and not so nice because she was a grumpy boss during rushes. He liked the bakery, Cora’s Cakes, and when people weren’t staring at him, they were very nice, mostly.

Adjusting included Derek fielding phone call after phone call from newspapers and TV stations asking for interviews, which Talia allowed even though Derek wanted nothing to do with them.

It happened overnight, the fame or whatever you wanted to title it. One day, he was just spending time with his baby brother, now the same age as he was, and the next, he was known from coast to coast, in every major and some minor cities. There had been what they called “anomalies” for years, people disappearing one place and waking up inexplicably and impossibly in another place. They all offered similar tales as Derek’s. They were just walking from one place to another, and just got lost almost. When they came out the other side of _whatever_ it was, hours, days, weeks had passed. But never years. Not like Derek. Derek was the anomaly amongst the anomalies. He was the outlier in even the weirdest cases.

Adjusting included telling and retelling the story of how he was just walking through the preserve to teams of scientists that came in droves. He walked them through the preserve, the same route he’d always taken to shorten his time from home to the Stilinskis. Nothing ever happened to them. What it was, it had only wanted Derek.

Adjusting included not ever seeing Stiles. Derek was busy being a poster boy for never going somewhere alone, a cautionary tale of walking in the woods by yourself. He was busy being a science experiment and a talk show guest. Stiles was busy being an adult. He was going to work and paying his bills.

Adjusting, whatever that meant, took most of the summer and before Derek knew it, September was coming up fast and he hadn’t done a damn thing with his life yet.

“It’ll calm down,” Patrick tried to reassure him one afternoon while they were packing up his room. He was moving into college early since he was on the soccer team, which Derek hadn’t been aware that he was good at soccer, let alone that Beacon Hills had a soccer team. “Hey, you could come visit me down at school. I’ve got a premium single, so you don’t have to sleep on the floor.”

Patrick, Derek had learned, was going to UCLA on a full ride scholarship for being a star soccer player. Talia Hale’s genes were more suited for soccer than anyone had realized until Patrick had tried out and ruled the soccer team.

“Yeah, let’s go to a bigger area and see how many people can bombard me there,” Derek grumbled, piling Patrick’s books into a box.

“No one’s gonna know you there; it’s fine.”

“It’s not fine. My face has been on televisions all over the country, and you think no one is gonna recognize me in LA?”

Patrick set his hand on Derek’s, stopping him from placing Patrick’s most recent yearbook in the box.

“Bro, listen to me. I want you to have a normal life after this, and I will do what I need to do to help that. Part of that is just to ignore the stares and go about your life like they aren’t there. You don’t have to do this, but I really want you to visit to me and see where I’m going. And, part of me wants you to apply to UCLA and go there with me.”

Derek laughed and shook his head.

“It’s closer to Stiles than Beacon Hills is,” Patrick added.

“What? Why would I want that?”

Patrick just laughed. He sank onto his bed as he laughed, shoulders shaking.

“You think we all didn’t see it? Really? Come on, Derek. We all knew you and Stiles were in love with each other. I thought you were dating, to be honest. I thought you and Stiles were boyfriends most of my childhood.”

“We weren’t,” Derek replied.

“Weren’t, as in past tense? Are you and Stiles,” Patrick started.

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him in months.”

“And how did you leave him?”

“In the morning without saying goodbye,” Derek replied, blushing out of shame. He knew why he did it. He knew he couldn’t have left with Stiles’ wide eyes looking at him. He just knew that it was a dick move. He just couldn’t figure out any other way he could’ve done it.

“That is shitty. That is really shitty of you, Derek.”

They were quiet for a while, Patrick lounged back in his bed while Derek rested his head on the corner of Patrick’s packing box. Derek could hear Laura’s two children, Silas and Marissa screaming downstairs, Laura’s husband telling them to slow down, be careful. It was a family affair downstairs with food and laughter, part of Talia’s big adjustment plan, but Patrick and Derek had elected to hide away and have a little peace and quiet.

“Oh, god. Derek, tell me you didn’t sleep with him and then ditch him without a word goodbye,” Patrick said, the epiphany coming over him suddenly and loudly.

Derek didn’t know how Patrick knew, but it’d always been a Patrick kind of intuition to know just what you were trying to hide. When Laura and Derek had tried smoking the first time in middle school, it was Patrick that knew and Patrick that tattled. Laura and Derek had never figured out how Patrick knew, since they’d done it in the playground after school with some of their friends while Patrick was at piano lessons. There was no way that Patrick could’ve seen them, but somehow he knew.

Derek’s silence told more than words and Patrick gasped, shooting up off the bed. He seized the book on top of the pile inside the box and hit Derek in the arm with it forcefully with a shout.

“Derek Silas Hale, you are an awful person!”

Derek opened his mouth to defend himself but found himself instead being dragged from the room. Patrick had been eight years old before Derek had vanished, short and pudgy with wide dark doe brown eyes. He hadn’t possessed the physical strength to drag Derek anywhere, then. Now, though, they were the same height and build, although Patrick had quite a bit more lean muscle than Derek did, given that he was in sports all year long. Derek had just done basketball in the winter. Now, Patrick dragged him easily down the stairs and into the living room.

“Mom, I need to borrow the car,” Patrick announced. Talia looked up from where she was tickling Marissa’s pudgy toddler belly.

“What for?” she asked.

“Derek needs to fix something, and I can’t tell you what it is, but trust me, you would be furious at him for it if you knew.”

Talia’s eyebrows furrowed as she looked from son to son.

“Be back before midnight,” she instructed.

“What? If I gave you something that vague, you never would’ve let me have the car!” Laura protested.

“That’s because you were a terrible child,” Derek called out as Patrick badgered him out of the house, stopping only to put on their shoes and swipe the keys. “If I don’t come back, remember that I love you all!”

“Come on, drama queen!” Patrick said, pushing him to the SUV parked in his mother’s usual parking spot. Derek pulled himself up into the passenger seat and watched as Patrick, baby Patrick who Derek remembered his mother being pregnant with and hoping he’d _finally_ have a brother, climbed with ease into the driver’s side. “You know, you get this weird stalker stare sometimes.”

“It’s just strange. The last time I saw you before the whole thing, you were eight. You had braces, and freckles, and you weren’t,” Derek said, gesturing at all of Patrick.

“Dazzling handsome? Suave and charming?”

“All grown up.”

Patrick smiled.

“That’s what happens, though, when you become an anomaly and disappear through a hole in the skin of the universe,” Derek continued. “Things change and the little eight year old you picked up from piano twice a week becomes an adult with his license and a dorm room.”

Patrick started the car and pulled out of the driveway, the potholes that Derek remembered in the road deeper and caused them to bounce higher.

“Well, don’t go disappearing on me again. I don’t need to be ninety while you’re still a spring chicken, okay? I want us to grow old and hate each other side by side. Got that, Derek?”

 

-&-

 

Stiles wasn’t home.

Derek hadn’t asked how Patrick knew where Stiles lived, but he was curious as Patrick took all of the turns without a second thought, like he’d been there dozens of times, that driving to Stiles’ house was just second nature to him. When they arrived, Patrick knocked and rang the doorbell until the front door was wrenched open and Erica glared at them.

“Oh, god, there’s two of you.”

“Good morning, Erica. Is Stiles at home?” Patrick asked as chipper as he always had been, undeterred by Erica’s growls.

“No. He’s at the bakery. Now, go away.”

Patrick thanked Erica and led Derek back to the car.

“Can I ask how you knew where Stiles lived so well?”

“Oh, please. You think Mom’s second son before I became her actual second son could just move away and Mom wouldn’t check up on him? No, we’re down here at least one a month checking up on him without letting him know we’re doing it intentionally. Like, Mom has to pick up something she ordered from a specialty shop and we just thought we’d pop in and take Stiles out to dinner. Maybe I need some time away from Beacon Hills and my friends, which Mom uses a lot, so she drops me and Stiles off at the mall with the family credit card.”

Derek made a noise, although he wasn’t sure what it was supposed to convey.

“Stiles was a mess after you disappeared,” Patrick continued. “It’s lucky he found Scott and Erica, because there’s no way he would’ve made it through college at the rate he was going.”

“What rate was that?”

“He wasn’t interested in anything. Like, seriously, bro, that summer was hell for everyone. He spent the entire time going over the evidence his dad found, or just lying in bed with this dejected, confused look. The Sheriff told us that sometimes they’d be out and he’d seem alright but then it was like he’d turn to talk to you and you weren’t there. He was just spiraling by August. He picked fights and slept at weird times and rarely ate.”

Patrick pulled up in front a wide storefront made entirely of glass with an outline of a four tiered cake in the center. On the top, a swirly script announced Brandt’s Bakery, and underneath it said in the same script, Come On In.

“Look. Stiles is like a brother to me, and I don’t want either one of you to get hurt here. I know how much you care and love and whatever disgusting emotion you have for each other, but I also know that without each other, you get depressed and uninterested in the world. Stiles has wasted the last nine years, and don’t you dare tell him that I said that. He hasn’t done anything, and he gets into these moods where he lashes out and doesn’t let anyone near him. Not even Scott can get him to chill, and Scott is like his other half. I brought you here to apologize to him, and to make it better because Mom hasn’t checked up on him since you came home. He needs this.”

Derek nodded and without another word, climbed out of the car. Patrick didn’t follow as Derek walked into the bakery, his palms moist and his heart beat racing. He hadn’t been this nervous to see Stiles ever, and they’d been friends since pre-school. He walked up to the counter and took a deep breath as a young woman with blonde hair pulled up into a curling ponytail smiled at him from behind the display case.

“Can I help you, sweetheart?”

“I’m looking for Stiles?” he said, his voice inflecting where he didn’t want it to. She smiled wider.

“Stilinski, you’ve got company,” she called. “He’ll be right out.”

She went back to setting up the display case as Stiles bustled out of the back, apron tied around his waist, a white flour smudge along his cheekbone. He caught sight of Derek and stumbled into the counter. He looked tired, the circles under his heads darker than ever, his hair teased up into some kind of weird puff on top of his head.

“Hey,” Derek said uneasily.

“Hey.”

“I was wondering if we could talk.”

Stiles nodded jerkily and looked around, eyes catching on the blonde woman.

“Hey Lulu, I’m gonna take my break.”

She looked between Derek and Stiles, her face breaking out in a wide, Cheshire grin.

“You take as much time as you need.”

Stiles let out a groan and hurriedly untied his apron while he walked from behind the counter.

“You’re as bad as your mother, you know that?” Stiles accused, tossing the apron at Lulu’s face as she laughed. “Come on, there’s a park down the road. More private, less vultures waiting to pick you apart.”

He directed this last bit over his shoulder at Lulu while guiding Derek from the bakery. He waved as they passed Patrick, sitting in the car. Patrick waved back and returned to his phone while Stiles lead them down the boulevard and eventually to a park.

The park was kind of sad, longer than it was wide with a paved winding path from the end to end. The only play equipment was a few broken swings, a dented slide, what was once a see-saw but lacked the plank that made it anything more than just a bar of metal, and a discolored merry-go-round that turned sadly on its own in the slight breeze. There was also a basketball court, but it only had one hoop that was nothing more than a pole of metal shoved deep in the ground with a hoop, no net, stuck to a plank of wood that constituted, barely, a backboard. A lone picnic table that was littered with lewd phallic drawings sat in the middle, red paint chipping off the slivered wood.

Derek didn’t comment on the park.

Stiles didn’t comment on anything, his hands shoved deep into his pockets and his shoulders hunched.

It wasn’t Stiles who broke the silence first, as it always was. Stiles couldn’t ever stop talking, and got himself into trouble because of it. But now it seemed that Derek had to pry the words out.

“Look, I’m sorry for leaving that morning,” Derek said, picking at the material on his shirt. “It was a really shitty thing to do. I should have waited until you woke up and had you drive me to the bus so we could’ve said goodbye.”

Stiles shook his head.

“What is it?” Derek asked. He wanted to nudge him, touch him like he was so used to. It took all of his effort not to brush his hand against Stiles’ arm.

“It’s not that you left, although that was shitty of you. Beyond shitty. I saw all of the interviews and heard all about this boy wonder that disappeared and showed back up nine years later without having aged a single day. You’re not even 18, really. You’re 17 years old. You’re a child. You haven’t been through college and you have never had your own apartment or had your water shut off on you because you forgot to pay the bill. You are just a kid, and I can’t do this to you. I can’t tie you down when this whole world, this whole _life_ is still out ahead of you.”

Derek opened his mouth to argue, but Stiles barreled on at full speed.

“I shouldn’t have let my feelings for you get in the way of what I knew, and I’m sorry that I let it get that far with us that night. We shouldn’t have slept together. I- look, we can’t be anything. I’m nine years older than you now, and you’re-”

“Just a kid,” Derek said bitterly. Stiles fisted a hand through his hair and sighed.

“I don’t want to do this, please don’t make it harder.”

“Is it your dad, or Erica?” Derek asked.

“No.”

“Then what changed your mind? Because you were all for this,” he said, making a flailing hand gesture between them, trying to encompass all of _them_ in one motion. “You had no complaints about us being together.”

“I changed my mind. We can’t do this.”

“Don’t,” Derek growled. “If it’s not anyone else, then what changed your mind? Because I don’t care if it’s been nine years for you. I’ve wanted to be with you for years. It doesn’t matter to me that you’re older now, Stiles. I’ve been in love with you since we were thirteen. This isn’t just some _kid_ thing, if that’s what you want to suggest, and you’re not going to tie me down. Even if you were, I want that. I want to be tied down by you.”

Derek paused, his face flaring red as he realized the implications. Stiles chewed on his lip like he was holding back his comments.

“I need you to listen to me and not butt in for a minute, okay?” Stiles said.

Derek nodded although he wanted to argue until Stiles realized they were good for each other and they always had been.

“I have an adult life, where I get up in the morning and go to two different customer service jobs so I can pay my bills and keep a roof over both my and Erica’s head. I go home and cook dinner for one most of the time and I watch the news and read books because I kind of miss college. I am boring at twenty-six years old. I am closer to thirty than I am to twenty, and what I want in life is to do my life over again. I fucked up, and I can live with that, but you don’t have to go through that.

“You can travel the world and then go to college when you know what you want in life. You can meet so many wonderful people that will brighten up your life and your day in immeasurable ways. You can explore who you are and expand your horizons and learn about this world that is presented before you, and you can change it. You have that opportunity, as a Hale and as one of the brightest guys I know. In fact, I want that for you. I want you to find what makes you happiest. I want you to find out if you like art more than history or maybe the history of art. I want you to join an intramural at college and take part in Pie a Greek in the Campus Center and chase a boy or girl that you find attractive through the quad with a snowball. I want you to experience everything that you can before you decide that you want me and my two dead-end jobs. Okay?”

Derek stared at his hands and nodded. He knew what Stiles meant. He wanted Derek to have the options of choosing something other than him if he wanted to but even with his entire future before him, Derek had always just wanted a life with Stiles. But Derek also knew that Stiles was as stubborn as he always was. He knew that, in these cases, it was just better to go with whatever Stiles wanted.

“Okay.”

 

-&-

 

Patrick and Derek were silent the entire ride home and Derek strode into the house before Patrick had even gotten out of the car. Derek didn’t know how to talk about this. He didn’t know how to explain how many pieces his heart was in, sitting in his chest cavity as it tried feebly to keep beating.

He sank into the open spot on the couch beside Laura who was retelling a story about how Silas had thrown up all over the Dean of her alma mater when she saw him in the supermarket, back before she moved home from Los Angeles. He rested his head on her shoulder and she squeezed his leg comfortingly. They’d had a weird relationship most of their lives, half antagonistic and half amicable. He supposed that was the nature of all relationships between siblings; one minute you trusted them with your life and your secrets and the next you wanted to bury them in the backyard just for looking at you and breathing in your general direction. But he was glad that he could count on Laura’s presence to just be there without question.

Well, without question was pushing it.

Laura was of the Hale blood, after all.

“What’s wrong?” Talia asked from where she was leaned against Andrew’s legs. Patrick slunk in after Derek and slipped upstairs before Talia could corner him as well.

“Is Peter still going on the trip?” Derek asked in lieu of an answer.

“Yes,” Peter answered from behind him. Derek never questioned how Peter could just appear and disappear. He’d grown up with Peter, so nothing really surprised him anymore. “Why? Are you interested in coming with me?”

“Yeah, I changed my mind. I think it’d be good for me to get out of Beacon Hills, out of the country for a while.”

 

-&-

 

Peter hadn’t changed much in the nine years that Derek had been gone, even physically as everyone else had.  Patrick had gone through puberty, and Cora had grown into an adult, and Laura had had children, and his mother had just grown older. Peter was different, though. All that Derek could recognize as _changed_ were his eyes that crinkled the same way as his sister’s, and his hair had begun growing lighter even though he was only in his thirties.

It was his personality that surprised Derek the most. He had literally not changed a single bit. He was still full of dry wit with a sharp tongue, vague mysteriousness that he used like a shield. He could snap from sane to terrifyingly absent in a second and his temper had not wavered, still short and unforgiving.

Peter and Derek departed the day after Derek, Andrew, and Talia had helped settle Patrick into his new life at college.

 _College_ , Derek thought. His baby brother was a college freshman now.

“I know you’re hurt right now,” Patrick had said as Talia and Andrew walked back towards the car, leaving the brothers alone. “I know you and Stiles had some sort of fall out, but don’t forget the rest of us are here for you. Always. Don’t run away just because you’re hurt.”

Except that’s exactly what Derek was doing, exactly what Derek wanted to do.

It was also what Stiles wanted him to do, but that’s not why he was doing this. That’s not why Peter had had to buy another plane ticket for every flight he was taking and call each hotel and let them know he’d need two beds instead of one. That’s not what this was about, Derek reminded himself. He wasn’t doing this for Stiles.

Part of him was doing this for Stiles, for Stiles’ approval.

Luckily for him, Peter didn’t mind Derek tagging along. They’d had a semi-friendly relationship growing up, considering the age between Derek and his uncle was not that drastic. It was now, of course, but Peter was closer to Derek and Laura’s age than he was to Talia’s. Derek brought decent conversation, could keep up with Peter in most ways.

They landed in England after sleeping on a nonstop red-eye flight from Los Angeles to London, ready to face the day of seeing the sights that London had to offer and visiting some of Peter’s old college connections. Derek got lost in London twice without Peter by his side, which Derek adored. He loved getting lost and finding new places he wouldn’t have found otherwise.

Peter didn’t mention Stiles or the nine years gap the entire time they were in London, and Derek was glad of it. That’s why he liked Peter. Peter didn’t care about Derek’s personal problems unless they interested or affected Peter in some way. It meant that unless Peter’s life was directly changed because of Derek’s problems, Peter didn’t care. As long as Derek wasn’t being vindictive or snotty, Peter was okay with Derek just sorting his own problems out.

It was nice to have someone, just one someone, in Derek’s wide, extensive family that didn’t butt into his personal business.

The Hales were a busy family.

They were also busybodies.

Peter and Derek took a train from London to Paris which terrified Derek but he refused to let Peter know that.

“Do you have mysterious _college_ connections in Paris that we have to visit?” Derek asked as Peter swiped them into their hotel suite. Their bags were already waiting for them, brought up before Peter and Derek had even gotten into the hotel. “How do you even know these people? When did you travel Europe and meet packs in every major city?”

Peter grinned that vague, mysterious grin at Derek and went straight for the liquor cabinet. They’d been on the train surrounded by rowdy college students and Peter didn’t _like_ rowdy college students, probably even when he was a college student.

“Any chance you’ll let me have some of that?” Derek asked, dropping onto one of the queen sized beds.

“Well, it’s not illegal, technically. Your birth certificate says you’re twenty-six, so by all means,” he replied. He left the door open for Derek as he took out a bottle of scotch and grabbed a glass from the desk. Derek moved and grabbed a random bottle of amber liquid and a glass as well. They sat on opposite beds, pouring the contents of their bottles into their glasses without saying another word.

“So,” Peter started after he tipped the last of his glass’ contents back into his mouth. “I’ve been a good uncle this entire trip-”

“You lasted four days,” Derek replied, swallowing the rest of his own glass of really awful, bitter whiskey. He tipped more from the bottle into the glass and swirled it around thoughtfully. “But you’re a Hale, so that’s longer than anyone else in the family.”

“What happened with you and Stilinski? Why are you here?”

Derek swirled it around again.

“Nine years happened,” Derek sighed. Peter nodded.

“Okay.”

 

-&-

 

They covered most of Europe in three weeks, Peter never mentioning Stiles ever again. They’d drank at many pubs and bars, staggering home to their hotel rooms after long days of sightseeing and reconnecting with their arms thrown over each other’s shoulders while they howled to whatever song they’d heard at the pub.

Talia would’ve been very upset at the both of them, had she known.

But Derek sent her pictures and videos of the two, sober, at monuments and landmarks to tide her over so she didn’t get curious while they weren’t. Sober, that is.

They flew back to Los Angeles with a layover in New York City. Peter drove back to Beacon Hills while Patrick picked Derek up at the airport. It was Patrick’s idea, and Patrick’s insistence, and Patrick’s charm that persuaded Derek, and Talia, to let the two have a weekend at UCLA together before Derek returned to Beacon Hills to be an adult and work at the bakery full time.

Cora insisted.

“Hey!” Patrick called to a group passing by them as they walked from the parking lot to his residence hall.

“Hale! I didn’t know you had a twin brother,” a tall, well-built guy replied, gesturing to Derek. “Hell, I didn’t even know you had a brother.”

“This is Derek,” Patrick introduced. “He’s my older brother.”

“Yeah, sure, Pat. This kid’s no older than we are,” the only girl, a short curvy girl with her red hair swept up into a pin straight ponytail, in the group laughed. The others laughed too, although Derek didn’t see how what she’d said was funny in any way. “Come on. Are you twins?”

“No. Derek just ages well,” Patrick said, elbowing Derek conspiratorially. “Anyway, Derek, this is Isaiah, Jason, Brianna, Toby, and Jeff. They live on my floor.”

Derek nodded as a way of greeting.

“You should bring him to the party tonight,” one of the guys, Derek thought he might be Toby, said.

“Yeah, maybe,” Patrick said. “I’m gonna go get him signed in for the weekend, but you guys have fun. Call me if you get stranded again.”

The group laughed like Patrick had said something particularly funny and Patrick led Derek along.

“You’re friends with them?” Derek asked.

“God, no. You think I’d be friends with the jackals? It’s just better to be with them than against them.”

Derek nodded like he understood, but the only jackals that he’d ever met were conniving backstabbers that had a tendency to air other people’s dirty laundry at school. He wondered where they were now, what the nine years had done to them. They were probably lawyers, or advertisers.

“You’re going to have to show them your ID,” Patrick said. Derek groaned.

“My ID says I’m twenty-six,” Derek reminded him.

“Who says you’re not just a very young looking twenty-six year old?”

“This is going to be humiliating, isn’t it?”

They came to the building and stepped inside the first set of doors to a scanner where Patrick flashed his school ID and the door buzzed, lock clicking loudly open. Patrick ushered him through the door and to a desk at the foot of the stairs.

“Hey Patrick,” a girl with lavender hair said with a grin. Derek watched as Patrick flashed his ID against another scanner on the end of the desk and gestured to Derek.

“I need to sign my brother in for the weekend. I have a pass,” he said, digging around in his pocket and pulling out a crumpled piece of yellow paper.

“Alright, hold on.”

The lavender-haired girl grabbed a binder from a shelf behind her and flipped it open. She scribbled on one of the first sheets of paper, glancing at the computer.

“What’s your room number?”

“405,” Patrick answered. Derek took his wallet out from his pocket and then his license, which he’d had to retake the test for having been gone for nine years. Finally, once the lavender-haired girl signed Derek in, Patrick led them up the stairs and into his room. “My roommate is in class right now, but he’ll be back by 3:30, probably.”

“Probably?”

“Yeah, he’s a bit strange,” Patrick started. Derek dropped into his desk chair and set his one bag on the floor next to him. It was a big room, cut in half by the desks sitting back to back in the center with beds on either side. Patrick’s bed is messy, his pillows and blankets bundled up from where he’d probably had trouble getting out of bed. “He’s part of Gaming Alliance, and the QSU-”

“QSU?”

“Queer Student Union. You might enjoy that. He’s been here less time than I have, and he’s already part of the board that puts on events and he has a job at the desk downstairs. It’s just strange. I like him, don’t get me wrong. But Raf is just odd.”

“What’s his name?”

“Rafael,” Patrick answered. “Rafael DelRosario. He’s a nice kid. He’s just extreme.”

Derek nodded.

“How was Europe?”

“It was good. I met a lot of Peter’s college friends, or so he says they were. I’m not convinced that he’s not part of some secret society yet.”

Patrick laughed, and it was nice to just be around his brother. He never thought that Patrick would be this close of a friend, but then again, he never thought that he’d step through some tear in the universe and come out nine years later. He’d expected to watch Patrick grow up and teach him the things that he learned from being the oldest boy, but he hadn’t and he can’t. He wasn’t even the oldest boy anymore. Well, he was, technically. Patrick was still 17, and so was Derek.

“We could pass for twins,” Derek decided, looking from his reflection in the mirror on the back of Patrick’s door to Patrick himself. “Fraternal twins, but still. God, this is weird.”

“Our lives are weird now. That’s okay. I’ll take weird. I’ve got my brother back.”

 

-&-

 

Derek loved UCLA. No one knew who he was or what had happened to him. No one connected him with the anomalies that kept cropping up all over the globe. He liked the anonymity of being in a big city. He liked that there were over forty thousand students on campus and that he was just one of many faces. No one knew him there. He liked that when he walked by, there were whispers trailing in his wake.

“You should apply,” Patrick said as they sat outside in the quad, waiting for Talia to arrive and pick Derek up to go back to Beacon Hills. “To UCLA, I mean. Or anywhere. I think college will be good for you, for the whole family. You can focus on your studies and move past just being the kid who got lost for nine years.”

Derek agreed.

“I don’t know what I’d study, though.”

Patrick shrugged.

“That’s up to you. We can grab a brochure, though, so you can explore all of the different majors.”

“I’ll look into it, and let you know what I decide.”

 

-&-

 

Derek spent hours going through all that UCLA, and its surrounding competitors, had to offer. Cora, and her boyfriend Isaac, often debated with Derek over majors that would be good and which ones wouldn’t interest Derek or wouldn’t offer any careers afterwards.

“What about Neuroscience?” Cora asked, leaning over his shoulder while she mixed batter for a batch of her red velvet chocolate chip brownies that she could never keep in stock.

“Do I look like a Neuroscience kind of guy?” Derek questioned, tipping his head back.

“Good point. Anything you’re leaning towards?”

“Something in the humanities,” Derek said.

“That narrows it down, but not enough.”

Derek groaned and dropped his head onto the desk in the back of the bakery.

“I know.”

It took him another two days before he settled on a double major or Linguistics and Education, and then he sent in his application for the spring semester. He got his answer in early November.

He was enrolled as an incoming freshman at the University of California in Los Angeles.

 

-&-

 

College was exactly what he thought it would be, and nothing like it.

He enjoyed his classes, the content and his professors, even if they were entry-level general education courses that had absolutely and completely nothing to do with his majors. He liked being busy with his work since he was taking six courses totaling 18 credits, and he had made friends, like actual friends he could hang out with whenever he wanted. Although, he mostly hung out with his roommate, a loud athletic guy named Joshua who, honestly, had a heart of gold, and Patrick. He didn’t go to many parties, and he didn’t join any clubs, but he was content.

College was good.

The first semester passed quickly for Derek, ending with an overall GPA of 3.76. He also walked away with the number of a girl named Hana who had flirted with him throughout his entire Monday Wednesday Friday Statistics class. She was cute, he thought, with short hair colored like bubblegum and big, wide brown eyes. He liked her, and she seemed to like him, and she texted him often enough without bombarding him.

Although, whenever she got excited, she would send him text after text of fragmented sentences and all caps words. It was kind of adorable. They had to spend the summer apart, since Hana lived in Boston, but they texted every day and gradually got to know each other.

Hana asked Derek out during a Skype call on the fourth of July, and Derek said yes.

He told her about his nine year gap in August.

 **That’s okay** , she replied after too long of a pause. Derek tried to remind himself that it might be because she was at work or with her friends.

 **Are you sure? I know it’s a lot to handle** , Derek sent.

It took her an entire day to reply this time.

**It’s fine.**

They lasted until the first week of Derek’s second semester, hot summer still raging on into September. She broke up with him in person, at least.

He’d seen it coming ever since he told her the truth about him. He’d seen how she backed away, texted with less vigor and less interest before. She didn’t ask as many questions, and she definitely didn’t confide as much. She was wary, and he guessed that was okay.

They met at their favorite dining hall and had lunch together. Derek hadn’t expected it to happen, then, even if he knew it was going to happen. After they were done eating, she put her hand over his and smiled sadly.

She hadn’t had to explain, even though she tried. Derek understood.

That didn’t mean, however, that it didn’t hurt like hell.

 

-&-

 

He kept his head down for the rest of that year and he didn’t actively try to make friends outside of his already established, small group of friends. He roomed with Joshua again, for a lack of a better option, with his brother and some of his brother’s soccer, basketball, and lacrosse friends in a suite.

He took twenty one credits, seven classes, the fall semester and twenty four, after seeking permission from his advisor, in the spring. He poured everything he had into his studies. He worked diligently and received the highest grades he could, which resulted in his overall GPA rising to 3.98 at the end of his third semester. With what Patrick called his “overload,” Derek was considered of junior class standing, same as Patrick, even though Derek had missed a semester.

“You can stand down on the robot student mode, you know,” Patrick said as they loaded up Patrick’s car to go home for the summer. Derek pushed one of his suitcases into the backseat next to Patrick’s plant, a present from Laura for his “first time away from home.”

“I just need to focus on something,” Derek said with a shrug. “It’s not too much work for me, even though everyone keeps telling me it is.”

Patrick sighed.

“Okay, just don’t work yourself too hard. You’re still only human, despite being the possible center of a science fiction novel.”

Derek laughed.

“Yeah, okay, Patrick. I won’t overdo it, okay?”

 

-&-

 

The entire summer, the brothers worked at Cora’s bakery. Cora worked them hard but let them have a slice of cake on the house for their efforts. Patrick was out late when the nights when he didn’t have to work the next morning, normally mornings when Derek did have to work. Their work schedules complimented each other’s and Derek rarely saw Patrick.

“Whatever happened to Greenberg?” Derek asked Isaac one day while Isaac worked together the battery for Cora’s well-known Cookies and Crème Crispie treats for the day. Derek often stayed late at the bakery, well-past his shift, in order to get to know Isaac better, reacquaint himself with Cora.

“Greenberg went into the National Guard, I think.”

Derek laughed.

“His best friend, Jared, though,” Isaac said and let out a whistle.

“Who’s Jared?”

“He puked on the bus that one year,” Isaac reminded him.

“Oh, right. What’s he doing now?”

“He’s the CEO of his own digital desktop publishing company and he’s doing really well for himself.” Isaac yawned and took his hand off the wooden spoon to push his hair away with the back of his hand. “God, I want to be done already.”

“Do you still have to mold them?”

Isaac nodded and rolled his neck and shoulders.

“Want some help?”

Isaac nodded again. Derek stood and washed his hands thoroughly before he grabbed the molds from one of the shelves. He handed one to Isaac and set one in front of himself.

This was one of the best memories of the summer, Derek thought later. It wasn’t the most exciting. One afternoon, Laura swept him out of the house with her two small children and they got lost twice on their way to Chuck E Cheese’s. That was also the same day that Mari, short for Marissa, decided that she wanted to pick up and throw Laura’s sweet tea directly at Silas’ face.

It was a quiet memory, talking about where their classmates ended up, molding rice krispie treats into different shapes. It was a quiet memory and in a life full of loud, brash, unerringly flamboyant memories, it was one in a million.

 

-&-

 

Derek dropped back to eighteen credits after that summer, because Patrick asked him to. The classwork now felt light after having managed twenty-four credits worth of work consistently. He was in his junior year and college was easy. Now that he had free time, and Patrick had dropped back to just soccer in the fall, he had a life outside of his classes, outside of the dorm.

When he did explore outside his comfort zone, that’s where he met them.

Them being Kip Faulkner.

Kip was kind-eyed, gentle in everything they did, and they had the softest laugh that Derek had ever had the pleasure of hearing. They were different than anyone Derek had been attracted to before. For one, Kip identified as gender fluid but there was also the fact that Kip did spoken word poetry every Thursday at Jitters, and baked cupcakes and cookies for all of the clubs they were in.

Derek could pinpoint the moment when Kip became more than just an acquaintance, more than just a friend. Kip didn’t get a lot of trouble from anyone, because they were nice, and friendly, and no one didn’t like Kip.

Kip and Derek were at Jitters together, making eyes at each other, and someone, a teammate of Patrick’s had made a passing dig at them for being queer. Kip had leapt from the table, grabbed the man by the collar, and shoved him into the wall. The teammate was much taller, much more muscular, and outweighed Kip by at least one hundred pounds, but Kip was fuming. They threw their weight against him and snarled quietly against his ear so only Derek and the teammate heard, “You have no right to call us queer when I saw you and Ray behind the soccer field with his dick in your mouth.”

Kip was amazing, always lighthearted and easygoing. They always had a smile of their face and a kind word for whoever they came across.

They kissed for the first time after a rather moving spoken word poem at Jitters, Kip swinging down from the makeshift stage, high with adrenaline from performing, and they fell into Derek’s lap to press a long, lingering kiss into his lips.

Patrick and Kip got along great, which made being with Kip so much easier and more delightful. It also made bringing Kip back to his single in their quad easier knowing that he didn’t have to sneak his significant other past his baby brother.

Derek waited longer to tell Kip about his nine year gap, and he told them in person.

“There’s something we need to talk about,” Derek said one night with Kip in his arms. Kip liked to throw themself over Derek at night like a blank, their limbs everywhere and all over like an octopus. He liked it.

“What do you mean?” Kip asked, barely lifting their head from Derek’s chest. “Are you breaking up with me?”

“No. I just think there’s something you deserve to know. About me. It’s usually a deal breaker,” Derek said gently, brushing Kip’s dirty blonde hair away from their face.

“I’m not so easily scared away that one piece of information’s gonna send me running. Unless you’re about to tell me you’re a murderer, or something.”

“I’m not a murderer.”

They looked at Derek with shimmering, blue eyes.    

“Do you know those, those _cases_ of people that vanish and then impossibly show up somewhere else without any idea of where they were?”

Kip nodded slowly, unsurely.

“I’m one of those cases. Except that I didn’t go missing for 12 hours or a day or a week.”

They licked their lips and nodded.

“I was gone for nine years,” Derek choked out. “I vanished when I was 17, and when I came through, I was still 17 and it was nine years later. That was two years ago.”

“You’re supposed to be twenty-eight,” Kip replied.

“That’s what my license says,” Derek said.

“Can I see?”

Derek peeled himself from the embrace and retrieved his wallet from the desk and took out his driver’s license. He handed it over to Kip who took it and stared.

“Wow, you really are twenty-eight.”

Derek sank into the desk chair and watched them spin the card in their hands. They both were silent for a while.

It was Derek who finally broke the silence, asking “is this a deal breaker?”

Kip pulled themself from the blankets and curled into Derek’s lap on the desk chair, pressing their foreheads together and stroking at the sides of Derek’s face soothingly.

“You’d have to be a whole lot older to drive me away, mister.”

Derek laughed quietly.

“So this is okay? I’m okay?”

“Yeah, Der. You are okay.”

 

-&-

 

Senior year, Kip and Derek moved into an apartment together just on the edge of campus with Patrick taking the other bedroom.

“I don’t want to hear you two having sex. I don’t want to walk into the apartment and you two are naked in the living room. There is a ban on living room, bathroom, and kitchen sex. Do you understand me, Derek?” That was Patrick’s rules as far as living together went.

Derek was happy, with his partner lying next to him every night and his brother and best friend in the next room.

He was happy. He was happy, and he was doing well in his studies, and he had job perspectives on the horizon. He never thought that his life would turn out like this, especially after Stiles.

Stiles weighed heavily in Derek’s mind no matter how happy he was with Kip.

Kip kissed perfectly. Their fingertips skirted Derek’s skin and made him tingle everywhere. They made Derek feel amazing, made him feel wanted. Kip was the reason Derek could get out of bed and smile at the world when shit sucked.

“Hey,” Kip said, ducking their head beneath the comforter to peak at Derek, who had bundled himself underneath it to hide. “What are you doing, grumpy pants?”

“Hiding.”

“Okay. And why are you hiding?”

Derek grumbled out his answer, the words too jumbled for even him to make out. Kip crawled into the comforter nest that Derek had created for himself on their bed and rested their forehead against Derek’s.

“What was that?”

“I’m just having that kind of day where nothing goes right and you want to not even get out of bed,” Derek explained. It was deeper than that, though. He missed Stiles, and he wanted to just _talk_ to him. He’d never gone so long without at least talking to him, even if Stiles had done it for nine years.

He wanted to scream and yell at the universe for fucking up his life, for choosing him and for making his disappearance last years where others were gone for hours. He wanted to throw a fit and kick his legs and cry because the universe robbed him of the chance he had at being normal.

But he didn’t know how to tell Kip that. He especially didn’t know how to tell Kip that he wasn’t just having a bad day, that instead he was missing the man he was in love with.

“Well, if nothing goes right,” they said, hot breath ghosting across Derek’s face, smelling like fresh peppermint, “go left.”

Derek was glad for the darkness around them, glad that they couldn’t see each other’s faces. His would betray him if Kip could see. He didn’t feel comforted as he usually would with Kip’s dumb sense of humor and lame attempts at joking around.

It wasn’t the first time that Kip wasn’t what Derek wanted from them, and it wasn’t the last. It didn’t put a strain on their relationship, but it did make Derek drag a weight of guilt behind him like an anchor.

Derek kissed Kip on the end of their nose and buried into their chest so they didn’t have to speak.

Kip wasn’t Stiles, and never would be.

 

-&-

 

“Okay, you need to spill,” Patrick said suddenly one afternoon when it was just the two Hales at home, working in their respective corners on their homework. Patrick was working on a research project for his athletic training major, and Derek was sure that Patrick had explained it to him, but he couldn’t remember what he was researching. Derek himself was putting together a request for a field placement.

“What?” Derek replied, half paying attention.

“You and Kip, what’s going on there?”

“What do you mean?”

“Were you always this dumb?”

Derek looked up from his fifth draft of the proposal at his brother who sat in a chair in the corner by the reading lamp.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You and Kip have two entirely different plans for after graduation, Derek,” Patrick replied.

“What? No, we don’t.”

“Are you kidding me? Kip hasn’t told you yet?!”

At that exact moment, Kip strode in with an armload of groceries, freezing as the Hales turned their gazes to them.

“What’d I do?” Kip asked.

Patrick snapped him laptop shut, swiped his bag from the ground, and stalked out of the living room, calling a short, “talk to each other,” before he slammed his bedroom door. Paintings and photographs rattled on the wall before settling, leaving Kip and Derek in the living room alone.

“What does he mean that we have different plans for after graduation, Kip?”

They let out a sigh and moved to the kitchen where they set the groceries down on the counter before returning to the living room, leaning in the door way with a guilty look on their face.

“Look, I meant to tell you, but we’re so happy together, and I didn’t want to fuck that up with-” Kip cut off and shook his head.

“What are you doing after graduation, Kip?”

“I have a job lined up in Chicago.”

Derek choked on the breath he was taking.

“Chicago? I thought you were staying in LA.”

“I was going to, but then,” Kip said and shrugged. “I wanted to make the most of the last few months we have before I go, and we have to break up. You make me happy, Derek. So much. But we can’t have a long distance relationship. I’ve tried, and it doesn’t work.”

Derek scrubbed a hand across his face, the facial hair he hadn’t bothered to shave in a few weeks bristling underneath his palm, and tried to will away the tears. Kip was going to leave him and the happiness he had fought so hard to get would go away again. He didn’t want to lose the lightness that Kip gave him, the gentle buoyancy to his heart inside his chest whenever Kip was around.

Part of him would follow Kip across the country to Chicago.

A piece of his heart, metaphorically, would live in Chicago.

 “So what do we do?”

Kip shrugged and they scuffed their shoes against the spot where the linoleum turned into carpet.

“We keep going until the sidewalk ends,” Kip answered. “And then, when graduation comes, we have one miraculous party filled night where we throw caution to the wind. Then, we part ways amicably because you are so important to me, Derek. I don’t want to lose you just because we can’t make this work cross-continentally. I want you still in my life and I will have you any way that I can, romantically, platonically, or whatever else there is.”

 

-&-

 

Derek graduated from the University of California summa cum laude, with highest honor. He didn’t deliver a speech, but he and his brother exchanged jokes in their seats and it felt the same for Derek as a speech. Between both Patrick and Derek, they managed to invite both their parents, and both their sisters. It was a big school, and they were graduating with a class of thousands.

The six Hales went to dinner together, a loud, boisterous dinner that took up two tables and probably annoyed the whole restaurant around them. They were all together, parents and children, for once, and it was nice. Derek laughed and drank with his baby brother, threw bread pieces at his younger sister, and kicked his older sister underneath the table.

“To Patrick and Derek,” Talia proposed, lifting her glass of white wine. “To my boys, home and happy and off to take over the world.”

“To Derek,” Patrick countered, “for coming back and taking on the world, even though he was set back nine years.”

“Hear hear!” Laura called from across the table. Derek raised his glass and clinked it against Laura’s pint of beer. Patrick nudged and grinned at him. Four years after his reappearance, Derek never thought he’d be here. He was officially twenty one years old, even if he was born thirty years ago. Patrick and Derek were college graduates, ready to start careers and become adults.

  

-&-

 

Derek had been back in Beacon Hills for three days when there was a knock at the Hale front door. He was home alone, since Talia was out with Laura’s kids while Laura and Laura’s husband were working, Peter was in New York, and Andrew, while he wasn’t avoiding Derek anymore, wasn’t home alone with Derek often. Derek was unpacking his boxes of stuff, sorting what he could donate and what he could just throw out when the knock came, loud and unfaltering.

“Be right there,” Derek called, setting a textbook beside him on the dining room table on the donate side. He could sell it, but he didn’t need the money. He headed for the front door and pulled it open, finding himself face to face for the first time in four years with Stiles Stilinski.

 

“Hi,” Derek said.

“I heard you graduated college,” Stiles said.

It’d been four years. Four very long years, and Stiles looked so much better and remarkably younger than the last time they’d seen each other. He was well-dressed, clean-shaven, and he was smiling like Derek had waited forever to see.

“I did.”

“What was your major?”

“Linguistics and education, double major, graduated summa cum laude,” Derek answered.

“That’s really impressive, Der. I’m proud of you.”

Derek grinned and looked over his shoulder into the empty Hale house. He asked, “do you want to come in?”

“Yeah, that’d be nice.”

Derek led them into the living room where all of Patrick’s boxes had yet to be unpacked, piled in the corners and in the doorway to the laundry room. They sat on the couch, their knees touching quietly.

“You look good,” Derek stuttered.

“Thanks. Uhm, so do you. Really, really good.”

Derek bit his lip and reached up to ruffle his own hair, pushing it out of his face. He needed a haircut, the last one administered by Kip in their apartment kitchen with a pair of scissors he normally used for class projects.

“Do you have a job lined up?”

“Yeah, I’m gonna teach English as a second language part time at the rec center until I finish my master’s.”

“You’re going for your master’s?”

“I want to be a linguistics professor,” Derek explained, watching Stiles’ knee against his own, “and I want to learn more languages, teach language in school.”

Stiles whistled.

“I didn’t know you had such ambition, Derek. That’s really good. I’m glad everything worked out for you.”

Derek had known Stiles for most of his life and even though there was thirteen years between them where Stiles could have grown without Derek, Stiles’ mannerisms and expressions were exactly how they remembered them. That meant that Derek knew what the look on Stiles’ face meant, knew what the concentrated stare and the clenching and unclenching hands meant.

“What do you want to say, Stiles?”

“I’ve waited thirteen years,” Stiles blurted out. “I’ve waited and I’ve been patient and I’ve wanted to take back that day at the park so many times. I was right, because you needed life outside of me. And now you’ve had those experiences and I want to pounce on you, but we’re sitting on your mother’s couch and your family could come in at any point. But I want, if you want to still, I want to try being together. I want to date you, and take you out to bars to show off how hot and beautiful my boyfriend is. But I know I have no right to ask you to come running back to me after I pushed you away and told you no when we both wanted me to say yes.”

“No, I want to say yes.”

“You want to, but?”

“But,” Derek said slowly, reaching up to touch where Kip had left a bruise on his collarbone, now mostly faded and covered by his shirt. “I just got out of a nearly two year relationship. I’m not ready to just jump back into hot and heavy, going out to bars, kissing in public just yet.”

“Two years?”

“Yeah, their name was Kip, and they are still in my life, for the sake of full disclosure. I loved them, but they’re in Chicago now. We’re over.”

Stiles nodded.

“What I want,” Derek said and paused to think about how he wanted to phrase this. “What I want is you, but I need this to be slow. When I came back, it was really, really fast. I wanted to prove that I wasn’t going anywhere, then, and you hadn’t seen me in nine years. We were desperate. And I know you’re thirty years old now, and you want to settle down, probably, but I’m not there yet. What I want is candlelight and walks and holding hands at the movies. That’s what I want.”

“I can do that.”

“What I want, mostly, is to build a life with you, and while we have known each other since pre-school, I think it’s important that we start at the bottom.”

“Okay.”

“So, hi. My name’s Derek Hale,” Derek said, sticking his hand out to Stiles.

Stiles raised his eyebrows but took his hand, shaking it.

“Hi Derek. I’m Stiles Stilinski. It’s nice to meet you.”

Derek grinned.

“It’s nice to meet you, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's officially been forever, and I am officially sorry. I did not think about Derek's half when I posted the first half and that was dumb of me, but here we are, months and thirteen thousand words later.   
> I'm super glad if you've read this, and enjoyed it, and if you could share it, kudos, comment, whatever, I would love you for eternity.  
> If you also want to follow a tumblr full of all kinds of nonsense, you can hit me up
> 
> [here](deputy-heart-eyes.tumblr.com)
> 
> I'm gonna shut up now, because this is the end of the fic and that's when you shut up.  
> But again, thank you. Thankyouthankyouthankyou.
> 
> DFTBA!


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